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History of Italian
Renaissance Art

Painting • Sculpture • Architecture

- *

Frederick Hartt
David G. Wilkins

SEVENTH EDITION

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About the cover

Some of the most convincing portraitists — Raphael,
Holbein, Poussin, Ingres- — sharply separated this vein
of their production from the idealism of their more
formal work. Raphael, cool and detached by nature,
seems especially interested in capturing the character
of Ins sitter, Angelo Don! relaxes outdoors with one
arm on a balustrade, the shaggy masses of his hair
reflected in the trees M the lower right, the bulky
shapes of his arms and hands in the low hills of
the background. The wealthy wool merchant is
impressive at thirty — cool, self-contained, firm*

To learn more about Raphael and Angelo Doni, turn
to Chapter 1 6 “The Origins of the High Renaissance*"'

Raphael* Angelo Doni * e. 1506, Panel, 24! x 17:/. 11 (63

45 cm). Pirn Gallery, Florence.

#06 tllustrdtu ms* with 6 77 in full color; 5 color maps

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About the authors

The late FREDERICK HARTT was one of the most
distinguished art historians of the twentieth century.

A student of Berenson, Schapiro, and Friedlaender, he
taught for more than fifty years, influencing generations
of Renaissance scholars. At the time of his death he was
Paul Goodloe Mclntire Professor Emeritus of the History
of Art at the University of Virginia. He was a knight of
the Crown of Italy, a Knight Officer of the Order of Merit
of the Italian Republic, an honorary citizen of Florence,
and an honorary member of the Academy of the Arts
of Design, Florence, a society whose charter members
included Michelangelo and the Grand Duke Cosimo I de’
Medici. Professor Hartt authored, among other works,
Florentine Art under Fire (1949); Botticelli (1952); Giulio
Romano (1958); Love in Baroque Art (1964); The Chapel
of the Cardinal of Portugal (1964); three volumes on the
painting, sculpture, and drawings of Michelangelo (1964,
1969, 1971); Donatello , Prophet of Modern Vision
(1974); Michelangelo's Three Pietas (1975); and the
monumental Art; A History of Painting, Sculpture ,
Architecture .

DAVID G. WILKINS is professor emeritus of the history
of art and architecture at the University of Pittsburgh and
former chair of the department. He also has served on the
faculties of the University of Michigan in Florence, the
Semester at Sea Program, and the Duquesne University
Program in Rome. Professor Wilkins is the author of
Donatello (1984, with Bonnie A. Bennett); Maso di
Banco: A Florentine Artist of the Early Trecento (1985);
The Illustrated Bartsch: “Pre-Rembrandt Etchers,”
vol. 53 (1985, with Kahren Arbitman); A History of
the Duquesne Club (1989, with Mark Brown and Lu
Donnelly); The Art of the Duquesne Club (2001); and
Art Past/ Art Present (sixth edition, 2007, with Bernard
Schultz and Katheryn Linduff). He was co-editor of
The Search for a Patron in the Middle Ages and the
Renaissance (1996, with Rebecca Wilkins) and Beyond
Isabella: Secular Women Patrons of Art in Renaissance
Italy (2001, with Sheryl Reiss), and editor of The Collins
Big Book of Art (2005) and A Reflection of Faith: St.

Paul Cathedral , Pittsburgh 3 1906-2006 (2007). In 2005
he received the College Art Association’s national award
for the Distinguished Teaching of Art History.

CENTRA^

About the book

History of Italian Renaissance Art, Seventh Edition,
brings you an updated understanding of this pivotal
period as it incorporates new research and current art
historical thinking, while also maintaining the integrity of
the story that Frederick Hartt first told so enthusiastically
many years ago. Choosing to retain Frederick Hartt’s
traditional framework, David Wilkins’ incisive revisions
keep the book fresh and up-to-date.

Newly added works of art reflea our ever-expanding
understanding of the diversity of the Renaissance period.
These additions include more drawings and prints, as
well as examples of porcelain, stained glass, and blown
glass. The visual culture of the time also encompassed
inexpensive, mass-produced devotional works, and a
print known as the Madonna del Fuoco has been added
as a rare surviving example of this type of work. Several
more portraits and a new representation of the David and
Goliath theme expand the exploration of konographic
themes. More color illustrations can be found throughout,
with a special emphasis on showing architefcture and
architectural models in color. An updated bibliography
provides a guide for further reading about artists and
major topics.

David Wilkins brings a strong, contemporary sensibility
to Italian Renaissance art, revising the text for greater
clarity, but always with an eye to preserving the evocative
and compelling voice of the book’s original author.

“The History of Italian Renaissance A rt just got even
better! I like the organization and approach. It’s both
scholarly and accessible.”

Sara N. James, Mary Baldwin College

“I’ve been using the book for forty years, from its
first edition in 1969, since it was, and still is, the best
available comprehensive overview of the major arts
of the Italian Renaissance.”

Robert Munman, University of Illinois at Chicago

“... consistently rich in its content, reliable in its
information, and enjoyable for the enthusiasm and
knowledge of its authors.”

Catherine Turrill, California State University, Sacramento

Italian

History
of Italian
Renaissance Art

Painting • Sculpture • Architecture

SEVENTH EDITION

Frederick Hartt
David G. Wilkins

Prentice Hall

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Front cover: RAPHAEL. Angelo Doni. c. 1506. Panel, 24 ! /2 x I 7 V 4
(63 x 45 cm). Pitti Gallery, Florence. Probably commissioned by
Angelo Doni.

Frontispiece: PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA. Discovery of the Wood
of the True Cross (detail), from the Legend of the True Cross. 1450s.
11'8" x 24 '6" (3.56x7.47 m).

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hartt, Frederick.

History of Italian Renaissance Art: painting, sculpture, architecture/Frederick Hartt, David G. Wilkins. — 7th ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-205-70581-8 (pbk.)

1. Art, Italian. 2. Art, Renaissance — Italy. I. Wilkins, David G. II. Title.
N6915.H37 2009
709.45*09024 — dc22

2009033197

10 987654321

Prentice Hall

is an imprint of

www.peaisonhighered.com

ISBN 10: 0-205-70581-2
ISBN 13: 978-0-205-70581-8

CONTENTS

Preface 8

1 PRELUDE:

ITALY AND ITALIAN ART 16

Representing This World 17
The Role of Antiquity 18
The Cities 20

The Guilds and the Status of the Artist 24

The Artist at Work 25

The Products of the Painter’s Bottega 25

The Practice of Drawing 27

The Practice of Painting 28

The Practice of Sculpture 33

The Practice of Architecture 34

Printmaking in the Renaissance 36

The Practice of History 36

The Practice of Art History: Giorgio Vasari 37

PART ONE

THE LATE
MIDDLE AGES

2 DUECENTO ART IN TUSCANY

AND ROME 40

Painting in Pisa 42
Painting in Lucca 44
Painting in Florence 45
Painting in Rome 53
Sculpture 57
Architecture 64

3 FLORENTINE ART OF

THE EARLY TRECENTO 72

Giotto 73

Florentine Painters after Giotto 95
Sculpture 100

4 SIENESE ART OF

THE EARLY TRECENTO 102

Duccio 103

Simone Martini iio

Pietro Lorenzetti 1 1 9

Ambrogio Lorenzetti 122

Orvieto Cathedral 128

The Master of the Triumph of Death 134

5 LATER GOTHIC ART IN TUSCANY

AND NORTHERN ITALY 136

Mid-Trecento Art in Florence 138

Late Gothic Painting and the International Style 145

Painting and Sculpture in Northern Italy 149

PART TWO

THE

QUATTROCENTO

6 THE RENAISSANCE BEGINS:

ARCHITECTURE 158

The Role of the Medici Family 160

Filippo Brunelleschi and Linear Perspective 161

The Dome of Florence Cathedral 164

The Ospedale degli Innocenti 168

Brunelleschi’s Sacristy for San Lorenzo 170

San Lorenzo and Santo Spirito 170

Santa Maria degli Angeli 173

The Pazzi Chapel 174

The Medici Palace and

Michelozzi di Bartolommeo 174

7 TRANSITIONS IN TUSCAN

SCULPTURE 180

The Competition Panels 18 1
Ghiberti to 1425 183

Donatello to 1420 188

Nanni di Banco 193
Donatello (c. 1420 to c. 1435) 196

Jacopo della Quercia 199

CONTENTS •

8 TRANSITIONS IN FLORENTINE

PAINTING 202

Gentile da Fabriano 203
Masolino and Masaccio 206
Popular Devotion and Prints 220

9 THE HERITAGE OF MASACCIO:

FRA ANGELICO AND

FRA FILIPPO LIPPI

222

Fra Angelico 224
Fra Filippo Lippi 232

FLORENTINE ARCHITECTURE
AND SCULPTURE, c. 1430-1455

Alberti 239
Ghiberti after 1425 249

Luca della Robbia 25 1
Donatello (c. 1433 to c. 1455) 254

Florentine Tomb Sculpture 261
The Portrait Bust 261

FLORENTINE PAINTING AT
MID-CENTURY

Paolo Uccello 263
Domenico Veneziano 267
Andrea del Castagno 271
Piero della Francesca 278

ART IN FLORENCE
UNDER THE MEDICI I

Donatello after 1453 298

Desiderio da Settignano 302

The Chapel of the Cardinal of Portugal 303

Benedetto and Giuliano da Maiano 306

Giuliano da Sangallo 309

Benozzo Gozzoli 312

Baldovinetti and Pesellino 313

13 ART IN FLORENCE
UNDER THE MEDICI II

Antonio del Pollaiuolo 320
Andrea del Verrocchio 327
Renaissance Cassoni 331
Alessandro Botticelli 332
Filippino Lippi 347
Domenico del Ghirlandaio 350
Piero di Cosimo 356

238

262

294

318

THE RENAISSANCE IN
CENTRAL ITALY

Siena 359

Sassetta 361

Domenico di Bartolo 362

Matteo di Giovanni 364

Vecchietta 364

Francesco di Giorgio 365

Neroccio de’ Landi 367

Perugia 369

Perugino 369

Pintoricchio 374

Melozzo da Forli 376

The Laurana Brothers and Urbino

Naples 384

Luca Signorelli 385

358

378

15 GOTHIC AND RENAISSANCE
IN VENICE AND
NORTHERN ITALY

Pisanello 389

Early Quattrocento Art and Architecture
in Venice 393
Jacopo Bellini 395
Andrea Mantegna 397
Mantegna and Isabella d’Este 408
Gentile Bellini 41 1
Antonello da Messina 412
Giovanni Bellini 415
Vittore Carpaccio 421
Carlo Crivelli 425
Venetian Fabrics 426
Venetian Publishing 426
Late Quattrocento Sculpture and Architecture
in Venice 428

Late Quattrocento Art in Milan 433
Vincenzo Foppa 433
Filarete 433

Quattrocento Painting in Ferrara 434
North Italian Terra-Cotta Sculpture 440

388

6 • CONTENTS

PART THREE

THE

CINQUECENTO

16 THE ORIGINS OF THE

HIGH RENAISSANCE 442

Leonardo da Vinci 443
Michelangelo to 1505 469

Raphael in Perugia and Florence 480
Fra Bartolommeo 484

17 THE HIGH RENAISSANCE

IN ROME 486

Donato Bramante 489
Michelangelo 1505 to 1516 496

Raphael in Rome 515

IS NEW DEVELOPMENTS

c. 1520-50 54 2

Michelangelo 1516tol533 544

Andrea del Sarto 555
Pontormo 558
Rosso Fiorentino 563
Perino del Vaga 565
Domenico Beccafumi 567
Properzia de’ Rossi 570
Correggio 572
Parmigianino 577
Pordenone 580

Antonio da Sangallo the Elder and the Younger 581
Baldassare Peruzzi 586
Giulio Romano 586

19 HIGH AND LATE RENAISSANCE
IN VENICE AND ON
THE MAINLAND 59°

Giorgione 592
Titian 596
Lorenzo Lotto 613
Tullio Lombardo 616
Painting in Northern Italy 617
Tintoretto 624
Paolo Veronese 632
Jacopo Bassano 639
Michele Sanmicheli 639

Jacopo Sansovino 641
Andrea Palladio 643
Alessandro Vittoria 647

20 THE LATE

SIXTEENTH CENTURY 648

Michelangelo after 1534 649

Art at the Medici Court 660

Benvenuto Cellini 662

Bartolommeo Ammanati 665

Giovanni Bologna 667

Agnolo Bronzino and Francesco Salviati 669

Later Ceramic Production 674

Giorgio Vasari and the Studiolo 676

Developments Elsewhere 681

Giuseppe Arcimboldo 681

Lavinia Fontana 682

Giacomo da Vignola and Giacomo della Porta 683
Federico Barocci 687
Fede Galizia 689
Caravaggio 689

Sixtus V and the Urban Plan of Rome 691

Glossary

692

Bibliography

700

Locating Works of Renaissance

Art

7 I 5

Index

716

Photo Credits

735

Literary Credits

736

CONTENTS •

PREFACE

The History of History of Italian Renaissance Art

W hen Frederick Hartt’s History of Italian Renaissance
Art was first published more than forty years ago, it
was a remarkable achievement. A large volume with
dozens of color plates, it presented the story of Italian
Renaissance painting, sculpture, and architecture as it was
appreciated and understood by one of the great scholars
and inspiring teachers of the period. Professor Hartt used
evocative and poetic language to describe the works that
he been teaching about for decades, and the book was an
instant success. Each of Hartt’s analyses was intended to
send the reader back for another, closer look at the work
of art. He was unapologetic about his enthusiasm for these
works and determined to point out the beauty, skill, and
optimism that, for him, were among the essential contribu-
tions of Renaissance art to the history of humanity.

Professor Hartt knew Italy and its artistic monuments
well. He served in the United States Army in World War II
as a member of the Allied Commission for Monuments,
Fine Arts, and Archives — a group charged with, among
other duties, safeguarding works of art. He arrived in Flo-
rence in August 1944, soon after the Germans retreated,
having bombed all the city’s bridges except the historic
Ponte Vecchio. Hartt played a crucial role in the documen-
tation and protection of works of art hidden from the
Germans and the restoration of monuments in Florence,
recording these experiences in a book entitled Florentine
Art Under Fire (1949). He also participated in the relief
efforts that took place after the disastrous flood of the
Arno River in Florence on November 4, 1966. As a result
of his work on behalf of Italian art and culture, he was
named a Knight of the Crown of Italy, an Officer of the
Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, an honorary citizen
of Florence, and an honorary member of the Accademia
founded in Florence in the late sixteenth century. He died
in 1991, and was buried at the famous Florentine cemetery
at San Miniato, overlooking the city he loved.

The history of Italian Renaissance art can be told in a
number of different ways. Hartt’s approach had its origins
in the first history of Renaissance art, written by Giorgio
Vasari in the sixteenth century. Like Vasari, Hartt empha-
sized works created in Florence, Rome, Siena, and Venice.
While there is much that is worthy of attention in the art
created in Naples, Milan, Ferrara, and other centers during
the Renaissance, to include this material in detail would
have detracted from Hartt’s thesis that Renaissance art
evolved in Florence and had its most fulfilling later devel-

opment in Rome and Venice. His understanding that each
of these cities evolved a unique style was the basis for his
organization of his chapters around the developments in
these centers. Such an approach remains appropriate, for
the story of each city’s art has an internal integrity that can
be related to its political structure and social development.

Vasari’s Lives of the Artists , Hartt’s model, was organ-
ized as a chronological series of biographies that discussed
each artist as a creative individual. Hartt also chose to
discuss each artist independently, although the careers of
Ghiberti, Donatello, Michelangelo, and Raphael are
divided over different chapters. While such an organiza-
tion provides readers with a strong sense of the distinctive
development of each artist, it also requires that they re-
create how artists overlap in time and how a chronological
understanding of events and works is helpful in analyzing
the art of this period. Such a biographical emphasis often
ignores the broader social and historical context within
which these works were created — factors that have become
more important in the study of art in recent decades.

Professor Hartt revised and expanded History of Italian
Renaissance Art twice before his death in 1991. In 1993, 1
was invited to continue this process, and the fourth edition
was published in 1994. As I set about updating Hartt’s
history in 1993-94, I was determined to maintain the
integrity of the story that he first told so enthusiastically. I
retained the basic organization of his text and the works
discussed were those he originally chose. The fifth and
sixth editions (2001 and 2006) had color illustrations
throughout the text rather than plates, and included new
works chosen to enrich the story Professor Hartt had laid
out more than thirty years earlier. In these subsequent edi-
tions, I have introduced a number of views that show
Renaissance fresco cycles in their original context. In addi-
tion, I have added new works that expand our understand-
ing of the diversity of the visual culture of the period,
including prints, ceramics, portrait medals, an illuminated
manuscript, a printed book, an enameled reliquary, addi-
tional examples of drawings, and works in terra-cotta,
stained glass, and tapestry. A photograph of the marble
quarries at Carrara suggests the difficulties Michelangelo
faced in finding the quality of marble that he felt was nec-
essary for his works. Digitized reconstructions increase our
understanding by suggesting the original appearance of
certain important works. I have also added illustrations of
some of the monuments of ancient Roman architecture

8 • PREFACE

and sculpture that were available for study by artists
during this period. While Hartt emphasized religious art, I
have increased the proportion of secular works, including
cassoni panels and a desco da parto — works made to cele-
brate the family at the time of weddings or births. The
addition of the names of patrons to the captions and of a
series of portraits of patrons and personalities enrich our
knowledge of the context within which these works were
created. The emphasis throughout, however, has remained
as Hartt originally envisioned it — on the work of art and
on the individual creator rather than on the social and his-
torical context.

Prior to the fifth edition (2001), History of Italian
Renaissance Art contained no discussion of works by
women artists. This seventh edition includes six works by
four of the determined women who were able to practice
as artists during this period. In addition, works commis-
sioned by women (including architecture) are discussed,
and portraits of women encourage consideration of the
attitudes held toward women during this period.

Despite the fact that scholars and enthusiasts have been
writing passionately about Italian Renaissance art since the
sixteenth century, the impressive number of recent publica-
tions indicates there is still much to learn about this
complex period. If I were to try to encompass even a
portion of the new scholarship published since the sixth
edition, this volume would have to expand dramatically.
The updated bibliography provides a guide for further
reading on the many artists and topics discussed here.

Because location was such an important consideration
in the design of Renaissance works of art, paintings and
sculptures that are still in their original settings — with the
exception of obvious examples of frescoes, mosaics, and
facade sculptures — are indicated by a It in the captions.
For works today in private collections or museums, the
original locations, if known, can be found in the captions.

What’s New in this Edition

There are more color illustrations, with a special emphasis
on showing architecture and architectural models in color.
The portrait medals are all reproduced to scale (see figs.
6.2-6.3, 10.2-10.3, 12.4-12.5, 15.6-15.7, 15.29, 17.2,
17.11). The text has been rewritten for greater clarity, but
always with an eye to preserving the evocative and com-
pelling voice of the book’s original author. Additional
selections from primary sources have been added: Ves-
pasiano da Bisticci’s description of Duke Federico da Mon-
tefeltro’s library at Urbino, Giovanni Rucellai’s comments
on the satisfaction he gained from the works of architec-
ture he commissioned, and Vasari’s description of how
Raphael engaged Marcantonio Raimondi to produce

engravings after his drawings and paintings. Some chapters
have been retitled to reflect their content more accurately.
A greater diversity of media is evident with the addition of
more drawings and prints, as well as examples of porce-
lain, stained glass, and blown glass. The exploration of
iconographic themes is expanded with the addition of
several portraits and a new representation of the David
and Goliath theme. A new section on “Locating Renais-
sance Works of Art” (p. 715) will help teachers, students,
and travelers locate works from the period in American
and European museums.

1 Prelude: Italy and Italian Art

New additions in this chapter include an ancient Roman
relief that was known during the Renaissance, a print
showing artists and an artist’s workshop, and one of the
drawings that Vasari included in his personal collection. A
new section discusses techniques of printmaking during
this period.

2 Duecento Art in Tuscany and Rome

The plans of the major churches in this chapter have been
expanded to include their respective monastic complexes,
with numbers indicating the location of artworks illus-
trated in the book.

3 Florentine Art of the Early Trecento

This chapter offers an expansive discussion of Giotto’s
Arena Chapel frescoes and discusses his influence on later
Trecento painters.

4 Sienese Art of the Early Trecento

Duccio and his followers are here covered in detail. The
iconographic diagrams for Duccio’s Maesta are simplified
and shown in black and white to make the numbering
clear, while the placement of the reconstructions on facing
pages adds clarity to the discussion.

5 Later Gothic Art in Tuscany and Northern Italy

Several additions enrich this chapter, including a color
view of Orcagna’s Assumption relief at Orsanmichele. A
new medium is emphasized by the addition of the stained-
glass rose window at Santa Maria Novella. Also new to
this edition is the discussion of how medieval geometry
and proportional systems provided a basis for Italian
Gothic architecture, as demonstrated in the diagram of the
proportional scheme planned for Milan Cathedral.

6 The Renaissance Begins: Architecture

The developments that took place in Florentine art during
the Quattrocento had a widespread influence and are the
subject of this and the next seven chapters. This chapter

PREFACE •

includes photographs of a reconstructed model and a
diagram of one of Brunelleschi’s devices for displaying per-
spective and clarifies the construction and engineering of
Brunelleschi’s dome for Florence Cathedral through new
illustrations that include the herringbone brickwork, a
model of the dome, and a reconstruction drawing of two
of the machines Brunelleschi invented to aid construction
combined with a section that shows the wooden and stone
chains and other details. Brunelleschi’s use of proportion is
made evident in a section of his revolutionary San Lorenzo
sacristy. A view of the Medici Palace today and recon-
structed ground plans increase our understanding of the
original structure.

7 Transitions in Tuscan Sculpture

The text in this chapter has been tightened and focused to
emphasize the innovations made by Ghiberti, Donatello,
Nanni di Banco, and Jacopo della Quercia.

8 Transitions in Florentine Painting

The visual culture of the period included inexpensive,
mass-produced devotional works. One of the rare surviv-
ing examples, a print known as the Madonna del Fuoco ,
has been added to this chapter.

9 The Heritage of Masaccio: Fra Angelico and
Fra Filippo Lippi

To emphasize the importance of Masaccio’s innovations
in painting, this chapter focuses on two painters who
accepted the new style and then transformed it. An impor-
tant feature in this chapter is a digital reconstruction of the
framing for Angelico’s San Marco altarpiece.

10 Florentine Architecture and Sculpture,
c. 1430-55

This chapter continues the discussion of works by Alberti,
Ghiberti, and Donatello, among others.

11 Florentine Painting at Mid-Century

This chapter demonstrates how the styles of Castagno,
Uccello, Domenico Veneziano, and Piero della Francesca
reference and expand upon the innovations of Masaccio.

12 Art in Florence Under the Medici I

New illustrations include a broad view of the front of one
of Donatello’s San Lorenzo pulpits and a more panoramic
view of the interior of Santa Maria delle Carceri in Prato.

13 Art in Florence Under the Medici II

This chapter brings the Florentine Quattrocento to a close
with works by Pollaiuolo, Verrochio, Botticelli, Filippino
Lippi, and Ghirlandaio. Verrocchio’s Equestrian Monu-

ment of Bartolommeo Colleoni is illustrated after cleaning.
The works of Piero di Cosimo have been moved here.

14 The Renaissance in Central Italy

To expand our understanding of the impact of the Renais-
sance in Siena, two works by Neroccio de’ Landi have been
added: a female portrait, reproduced with its original
frame, and his representation of a woman from ancient
history, Claudia Quinta — part of a series of famous men
and women. A new view of Luciano Laurana’s courtyard
at the Palazzo Ducale, Urbino, demonstrates the innova-
tions of this important architectural monument. Art in
Naples receives more attention with the inclusion of
Alfonso of Aragon’s triumphal arch at the Castel Nuovo.
The works of Signorelli have been moved to this chapter.

15 Gothic and Renaissance in Venice and
Northern Italy

The reworking of this chapter has been extensive, with
additions that include the Gothic palace known as the Ca
d’Oro in Venice, a print of a mythological subject by Man-
tegna, an Italian textile of the period, a printed book with
painted decoration, and three new Venetian sculptures,
one of which is the tomb of a doge.

16 The Origins of the High Renaissance
Additional works by Leonardo and Michelangelo enrich
this chapter. A detail of the areas Leonardo painted on
Verrocchio’s Baptism establishes the revolutionary nature
of his style from an early age. The treatment of the Last
Supper is expanded by the addition of a preparatory
drawing and a print after the fresco that shows details now
lost because of the work’s condition. New illustrations of
Leonardo’s Burlington House Cartoon and a drawing by
Michelangelo for the Battle of Cascina bring us into inti-
mate contact with the artists. Michelangelo’s St. Matthew
for the Duomo in Florence has been added to demonstrate
his earliest use of the figura serpentinata .

1 7 The High Renaissance in Rome

Additions to this chapter include an illustration that clari-
fies Bramante’s design for the Belvedere Palace, Michelan-
gelo’s spandrel of David and Goliath in the Sistine Chapel,
Raphael’s cartoon for the School of Athens , and Sebas-
tiano del Piombo’s Raising of Lazarus .

18 New Developments c. 1520-50

Because the term “Mannerism” has become so inclusive
as to be almost meaningless, in this edition the term is
avoided. “Florentine court style” is used instead to define
the characteristics of the new style that developed in
Florence after the High Renaissance. During the sixteenth

IO • PREFACE

century, prints, a relatively inexpensive medium, became a
popular means by which monuments and styles were
circulated in Europe. New additions in this chapter include
a chiaroscuro woodblock print after a design by Parmi-
gianino and one of the artists’ portraits that illustrated
Vasari’s Lives .

19 High and Late Renaissance in Venice and on
the Mainland

A world map published in Venice in 1511 emphasizes the
new global understanding that emerged from exploration
and trade at this time, while a glass Nef exemplifies Venet-
ian glass production. Three additional north Italian por-
traits expand our understanding of the new roles being
played by portraiture in Renaissance society, while each
emphasizes the luxury textiles that were a part of Italian
commercial success during the Renaissance.

20 The Late Sixteenth Century

New works in this chapter demonstrate the variety of
Italian art at this time and reveal how Renaissance devel-
opments laid the groundwork for seventeenth-century art.
They include Giambologna’s Mercury , Arcimboldo’s Fire ,
the church of II Gesu in Rome, a portrait by Fede Galizia,
and Caravaggio’s Madonna di Loreto . To demonstrate the
impact of global trade on the Renaissance, an example of
porcelain inspired by Chinese models has been added.

Acknowledgments

I owe special thanks to my teachers at Oberlin College,
Ohio — Paul Arnold, Barry McGill, Charles Parkhurst, and
Wolfgang Stechow. For my education at the University of
Michigan I owe thanks to Ludovico Borgo, Eleanor
Collins, Marvin Eisenberg, Ilene Forsyth, Oleg Grabar,
Victor Meisel, Clifton Olds, James Snyder, Harold Wethey,
and Nathan Whitman. In preparing this seventh edition I
want to thank a number of individuals for their assistance,
including my family — Ann, Rebecca, and Katherine
Wilkins and Chris and Sofia Colborn; Ann’s knowledge of

the subtleties of grammar and her demands for greater pre-
cision in language consistently improved the text. I also
wish to thank past and present students and colleagues at
the University of Pittsburgh — Bonnie Apgar Bennett, Kath-
leen Christian, Derek Churchill, Patrizia Costa, Jennifer
Craven, Roger Crum, Britta Dwyer, Holly Ginchereau,
Ann Sutherland Harris, Kathy Johnston-Keane, Sarah
Cameron Loyd, Erin Marr, Margaret McGill, Stacey
Mitchell, Mary Pardo, Rosi Prieto, Azar Rejaie, David
Rigo, Bernie Schultz, Greg Smith, David Summers,
Franklin Toker, and Jim Wilkinson. Others who have made
useful suggestions include Amy Bloch, Jonathon Nelson,
Mark Rosen, and John Varriano. Among the friends in
Italy who have provided support and nourishment are
Roberta Aronson, Enrico Capparucci, Giuliana Serroni,
and Michael Wright. Previous editions profited from the
thoughtful assistance of the staff at Harry N. Abrams, Inc.,
and, above all, Julia Moore and Cynthia Henthorn. The
splendid digital reconstructions are the work of Lew Minter
of Lafayette College, Pennsylvania. For this seventh
edition, I owe thanks to Sarah Touborg and Helen Ronan
at Pearson/Prentice-Hall, and at Laurence King Publishing
to the development editor Kara Hattersley-Smith, project
manager Nicola Hodgson, picture researcher Sue Bolsom,
and designer Paul Tilby.

I would also like to thank these manuscript reviewers:

• Sarah Nair James, Mary Baldwin College, Virginia

• Rosi Prieto, California State University, Sacramento

• Shelley C. Stone, California State University, Bakersfield

• Catherine Turrill, California State University,
Sacramento

I am especially indebted to Robert Munman, University of
Illinois at Chicago, whose review of the sixth edition made
many helpful suggestions for corrections, additions, and
improvements.

In conclusion, my hearty thanks to all. Errors and omis-
sions are, as always, my responsibility alone.

DAVID G. WILKINS
Silver Lake, New Hampshire, 2009

• II

PREFACE

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E A

PRELUDE: ITALY AND ITALIAN ART

T he matrix of Italian art is Italy itself (fig. 1.1).

The variety of the landscape transforms a
country roughly the size of California into a
subcontinent, harboring an infinity of pictorial
surprises. Alpine masses shining with snow
in midsummer, fantastic Dolomitic crags, turquoise lakes
reflecting sunlight onto cliffs, fertile plains, poplar-
bordered rivers, sandy beaches, Apennine mountain chains
enclosing green valleys, vast pasture lands, glittering bays
enclosed by mountains, volcanic islands, dark forests,
eroded deserts, gentle hills — all combine to make up the
land of Italy. The variety of natural elements and the way
in which the mountains separate one area from another
also help to explain the diversity of Italian art created in
various centers during the Renaissance.

But not all the beauty of Italy was provided by nature.
The country and its people have made their peace in an
extraordinary way. Many towns and even some large cities
do not lie in the valleys but are perched on hilltops, some-
times at dizzying heights. The reason for such positions
is not hard to understand, for most Italian towns were
founded when defense was essential. At the same time, the
views from their ramparts offered the inhabitants not only
a military but also an intellectual command of surrounding
nature. Where the land is fertile, those hills that are not
crowned with villages, castles, or villas have been turned
into stepped gardens, with terraces where wheat, the olive,
and the vine — those essentials of Italian civilization — grow
together. Only here and there does one come across wild
tracts that have defied attempts at cultivation. Agriculture
and forests are submitted to the ordering intelligence of
human activity. On the Lombard plains, plots of woodland

Opposite: 1.1. Map of Italy.

are marshaled in battalions; like perfect sentinels, cypresses
guard the Tuscan hills. Three-hundred-year-old olive trees
shimmer in gray and silver, winter and summer alike. The
Italian climate is less gentle than its reputation; even in
southern Italy and Sicily, winter can be dark and wet, while
throughout the peninsula summer can be hot, autumn
rainy, and spring capricious. Yet in three millennia of
stormy marriage with the land, the Italians have created a
harmony between human life and the natural world that is
seldom found elsewhere.

During the modern era, the forces of industrialization
have drained some historic hill farms of their population.
Stone farmhouses now stand abandoned among untended
olive trees and crumbling terraces. But one can still experi-
ence the Italian concord with nature. Country roads can
be traveled, and hill farms are worked by pairs of long-
horned oxen. Views across lines of cypresses and up rocky
ledges reveal what might be the background of a fresco by
Benozzo Gozzoli. The vast Umbrian spaces are much as
Perugino saw them, and the woods in the Venetian plain
seem ready to disclose a nymph and satyr from the paint-
ings of Giovanni Bellini.

Representing This World

Some of the earliest attempts at naturalistic representation
found in Italian painting document the local landscape:
Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s view of the countryside around
Siena in his Allegory of Good Government in the City and
Country (see fig. 4.28), for example, or the Tuscan fields
that Gentile da Fabriano placed behind a fleeing Holy
Family in the Flight into Egypt (see fig. 8.4). It might be
said that the history of fourteenth- and fifteenth-century
painting in Italy can be understood as an attempt by artists
to capture naturalism. During these centuries painters

PRELUDE: ITALY AND ITALIAN ART • 1J

experimented, trying to learn how to represent on a two-
dimensional surface what is seen by the human eye: the
effect of receding space we experience as we move in the
world, the bulk and weight of figures and objects and their
tie to gravity, and the softening effects of atmosphere in a
landscape view. Sculptors from the same period gradually
realized how to represent figures in positions that suggest
the potential for movement, wearing clothing that seemed
to respond to new, naturalistic poses. An example of this
would be Donatello’s St. Mark (see fig. 7.12). When the
word “naturalism” is used in this book, it is describing the
broad effects outlined above.

In discussing art, a difference is usually established
between naturalism and realism. While naturalism refers
to the attempt to mimic what we see, realism refers to the
representation of the real world without idealization.
Realism is less common in Italian Renaissance art because
of the strong interest shown by patrons and artists in the
notion of ideal beauty; see, for example, Michelangelo’s
David or Raphael’s Donna Velata (see figs. 16.1, 17.54).
Among the relatively rare examples of realism during the
Renaissance, we might cite Masaccio’s painting of a shiv-
ering man waiting to be baptized in a cold river, or Fede
Galizia’s Portrait of Paolo Morigia (see figs. 8.1, 20.57).
After the introduction of oil paint into Italy some artists
tried to represent the effect of light as it hits every fold of
silk in a lustrous fabric, as in Moretto’s Portrait of a Young
Man (see fig. 19.35), or every wrinkle in an old man’s face,
as, again, in Galizia’s Portrait of Paolo Morigia ; such
effects are described as naturalistic or realistic detail,
respectively. Representing the world around them is one of
the important ways in which Renaissance artists articu-
lated the new ideas circulating in cities on the Italian

peninsula during this period. The interest in the real world
expressed by naturalism and realism is yet another reason
why the Renaissance has recently been described as the
beginning of the Early Modern Period.

The Role of Antiquity

The harmony with nature discussed above helps explain
why Italian Renaissance art is distinctive. Another factor is
the survival of artistic and architectural monuments from
the culture of ancient Rome: sarcophagi, sculptures, and
coins were abundant, as were fragments of architectural
structures, some of which had been reused as decoration
and/or structure in medieval buildings. Entire ancient mon-
uments seldom survived; one exception is the Pantheon in
Rome, the impressive dome of which soars 144 feet above
the floor (fig. 1.2). The domes of both Florence Cathedral
and St. Peter’s in Rome (see figs. 6.7, 17.14, 20.11) were
responses to the challenge proffered by the dome of the
Pantheon. Also in Rome was the grand ruin of the Colos-
seum (fig. 1.3), the fabric of which had been mined for
centuries because it provided an abundant source of cut
stone; only when Pope Benedict XIV halted the destruction
in 1749 was the Colosseum saved. The half-columns of
the Colosseum’s exterior provided Renaissance architects
with a demonstration of how the Greek architectural
orders could be applied to a structure, influencing
such monuments as Leonbattista Alberti’s Palazzo Rucellai
(see fig. 10.5).

Even an ancient coin or the fragmentary torso of a
sculpted figure could provide inspiration to Renaissance
artists. Ancient works were presumed to be illustrations of
ancient life. Renaissance artists and architects made

1.2. The ancient Roman Pantheon, built 123-25 CE, in a
cut-away illustration from Antonio Lafreri’s Speculum Romanae
magnificentiae . Engraving, 1564. British Museum, London.

1.3. The ancient Roman amphitheater known as the Colosseum,
built 72-80 ce, from Antonio Lafreri’s Speculum Romanae
magnificentiae. Engraving, 1564. British Museum, London.

I 8 • THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

drawings from ancient Roman remains, and humanists
and artists were excited when new examples were found.
In 1506 the heroic group of Laocoon and His Sons (see fig.
17.3) was discovered in the ruins of the Golden House of
Nero in Rome. The dramatic physical and emotional strug-
gle seen in these figures had an almost immediate impact
on the works of Michelangelo; see, for example, figures
17.42-17.43. Another important discovery was a fragment
that became known as the Belvedere Torso (see fig. 17.4)
because it was installed in the new Belvedere Palace (see
fig. 17.17), now part of the Vatican Museums. The bronze
equestrian monument of the Roman emperor Marcus
Aurelius (fig. 1.4) had been visible in Rome throughout
the Middle Ages, when it was revered because it was
presumed to be a portrait of the Emperor Constantine,
who had allowed Christianity to be practiced freely within
the Roman Empire. During the Renaissance, the statue

1.4. Equestrian Monument to Marcus Aurelius. 161-80 CE. Bronze
(originally gilded), over-life-sized. In the Renaissance, this monument
became the centerpiece for the piazza on the Capitoline Hill (see figs.
20.12-20.13). This image shows the statue before it was cleaned and
moved to the Capitoline Museum, Rome. A replica now stands in its
place on the Capitoline Hill.

was appreciated as an impressive work of art, and it
played a role in inspiring Donatello’s and Verrocchio’s
monuments to contemporary mercenary generals (see figs.
10.23, 13.16).

One of the best-preserved examples of the ideal nude
male figure available during the Renaissance was the
Apollo Belvedere (fig. 1.5). When and where this sculpture

1.5. Apollo Belvedere. Second century ce. Marble, 7'4" (2.2 m).
Vatican, Rome. Ancient Roman copy of a bronze sculpture of the
fourth century BCE, perhaps by the ancient Greek sculptor Leochares.
The sculpture takes its name from its placement, by 1511, in the
Belvedere Palace in the Vatican. The figure probably originally held
arrows in his left hand.

The Vatican Museums, which can trace their origins back to the
sixteenth century, include the collections gathered or commissioned
by the papacy. They are especially rich in ancient and early Christian
sculpture and in paintings once in St. Peter’s Basilica or in Roman
churches. This complex also includes the Sistine Chapel, with
Renaissance paintings of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries (see
figs. 17.1, 17.23). The tapestries that once decorated the chapel’s
lower walls are in another part of the museum. There is also now
a section devoted to modern religious art.

PRELUDE: ITALY AND ITALIAN ART * 19

was discovered is unknown, but it was in the papal collec-
tions by 1509 and in the Belvedere by 1511. Some of
Michelangelo’s works can be compared to the Apollo
Belvedere , including Bacchus and Christ in the early Pieta
(see figs. 16.36-16.37), but in general Michelangelo added
a level of emotional expression not found in the Apollo.

Several other types of ancient sculpture also provided
inspiration, including sarcophagi (see fig. 2.22), standing
male figures wearing togas or armor, and relief sculptures.
The large relief of Marcus Aurelius Sacrificing Before the
Capitoline Temple (fig. 1.6) probably originally decorated
a triumphal arch. At least thirteen Renaissance drawings of
this relief are known. The high-relief figure of Marcus
Aurelius, to the left of center, stands in the relaxed position
known as contrapposto — a pose common in Greek and
Roman sculpture and often adopted during the Renais-
sance (see fig. 7.12) — while the manner in which his toga
both conceals and reveals his body can be compared to
similar effects in Renaissance figures by Donatello and
Nanni di Banco (see figs. 7.12, 7.15). The realistic treat-
ment of the heads in the relief — note especially that of the

1.6. Marcus Aurelius Sacrificing Before the Capitoline Temple .
176-80 CE. White marble, IV 6" x 7'9" (3.5 x 2.36 m). Ancient
Roman, from a triumphal arch (?). Palazzo dei Conservatori, Rome.
Certain areas of the relief have been restored, including the arms and
hands of all of the main figures.

figure to the far right — demonstrates another important
Classical attribute that inspired Renaissance sculptors.

The impact of these and other ancient works on Renais-
sance artists and architects will become evident in the fol-
lowing chapters. Artifacts, art, and architecture from the
Graeco-Roman world were supplemented by ancient texts,
which were studied by humanists, the scholar-teachers of
this period. The human dignity and critical reasoning they
found in ancient writings played an important role in the
transformation of art and society that we now call the
Italian Renaissance. While the humanists showed an inter-
est in all areas of ancient learning, they were at the same
time determined to reconcile the ideas they found in Greek
and Roman authors with Christian beliefs.

This ancient material had been available throughout the
Middle Ages, but during that period it had little effect.
Changes in late medieval society and culture must have
prepared the way so that Renaissance scholars and artists
could be receptive to the visual and intellectual impact of
the remains of the Graeco-Roman world. The story of the
Italian Renaissance as a historical and cultural whole is
complex, and the role of antiquity in the creation of works
of art is only one part of a much larger narrative that is still
being analyzed.

The Cities

The art, culture, and history discussed in this volume
were focused in cities on the Italian peninsula. The
growth of these cities, the wealth accumulated there, and
the increasing sophistication of urban life are important
foundations for the developments that became the Renais-
sance. To speak of these cities as Italian is factually incor-
rect, for the nation of Italy was not established until the
second half of the nineteenth century. The term “Italian
cities” is correct only in the sense that these centers existed
on the Italian peninsula, and their citizens were unified
by a common language, albeit one divided into many
distinct dialects.

The Italian language uses the same word (paese) for
village and country (in the sense of nation), and to a
medieval Italian the boundaries of “country” did not
extend beyond what could be seen from a hilltop village.
Maps of Italy in the late Middle Ages and Early Renais-
sance look like mosaics, the pieces representing political
entities that were sometimes hardly larger than a village.
These communes, which have often been compared to
the city-states of ancient Greece, were all that remained
of the Roman Empire, or of the kingdoms and duke-
doms founded in the disruptive period following the
barbarian invasions and the ensuing breakup of ancient
Roman society.

20 • THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

At the outset of the late Middle Ages, most city-states
were republics, but in Lombardy, in the northwest, some
were ruled by their bishops. In general, the republics were
merchant cities and their governments were dominated by
manufacturers, traders, and bankers. These republics were
often in a state of war with each other, even with neighbors
(Florence with Fiesole, Assisi with Perugia). Even more dis-
ruptive than the inter-communal wars, however, were the
eruptions of family against family and party against party
within the communes. Under such conditions, it was easy
for powerful individuals to undermine the independence of
a city-state. Nobles in their castles, mercenary generals
ostensibly hired to protect the republic, and powerful mer-
chants struggled to gain control of the prosperous towns;
their success in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries often
led to the loss of communal liberties. The most successful
of the superpolities was the papacy, which maintained
various degrees of control over a wide belt of central
Italian cities from its center in Rome.

Some of the republics were destined for greatness. By the
thirteenth century, Venice had established an enormous
empire in support of its commercial ties with the East. By
the end of the thirteenth century, Florence was trading
with northern Europe and Asia and had so many branches
of its banking firms in Europe that Pope Innocent III
declared that there must be five elements, rather than four,
because wherever Earth, Water, Fire, and Air were found in
combination, one also saw Florentines. Other important
republics included Siena, Lucca, Pisa, and Genoa, all of

which were separate, proud, independent states. Each
state, whether a republic or ruled by a despot, tended to
absorb its smaller neighbors by conquest or purchase. As a
result, by the end of the fifteenth century the peninsula was
divided into a decreasing number of polities, each domi-
nating a relatively large subject territory. Yet they were
unable to unite against the menace of the increasingly cen-
tralized monarchies of the rest of Europe, which in the six-
teenth century were to threaten Italy on several occasions.

Florence’s ground plan reveals the nature of the expan-
sion of one Italian city state (see Map II, p. 13). A bird’s-
eye view shows the city in the fifteenth century, when it
was the largest in Europe (fig. 1.7), with more than
100,000 inhabitants. The cathedral’s Renaissance dome
formed a focus for the city, which was surrounded by
walls and the Tuscan hills. The core of the late medieval
city was the ancient city plan, with north-south and
east-west streets intersecting at right angles — an ordered
urban design still visible in the map today. By the thir-
teenth century, the city had outgrown this core and more
inhabitants clustered around the gates than within the
ancient Roman plan. These areas of the city developed
with no urban planning during the Middle Ages, and they
are less regular than the ancient Roman center. During the
thirteenth century a fortified city wall was built to protect
the city. Later, a fourteenth-century circle of walls encom-
passed an area so large that the city had not filled it by the
nineteenth century. Its gates were decorated with paintings
and sculpture, both civic and religious in nature.

1.7. FRANCESCO DI LORENZO ROSSELLI (attributed to). Florence: View with the Chain . 1480s. Woodcut, 23 x 51 3 /4" (58.4 x 131.5
cm). Every will drawn up in Florence was required to include a donation to the maintenance of the city walls. Compare to Map II, p. 13.

2 I

PRELUDE: ITALY AND ITALIAN ART •

The print shown in figure 1.8 documents an eighteenth-
century Florentine festival, but it reminds us how the civic
and religious spaces of the Italian Middle Ages and Renais-
sance provided a setting for public festivities and cere-
monies: fairs, theatrical productions, sporting events,
weddings, funerals, triumphal processions. While records
document the costumes, floats, music, temporary tri-
umphal arches, dramatic productions, and other aspects of
such events, the visual evidence is slim. Only a later repre-
sentation such as this can suggest the excitement of such an
experience within its communal setting. Even today, on
certain national, regional, and civic holidays, elaborate tra-
ditional processions and rituals play an important role in
the life of Italian cities.

The hill town of Siena (fig. 1.9, and see Map IV, p. 15)
is located some 45 miles south of Florence over winding
roads — in the Middle Ages probably a day’s journey on
horseback. A wealthy commercial and political rival of
Florence, Siena was conquered by Florence in the
middle of the sixteenth century. Instead of the foursquare

intersections and powerful cubic masses of Florence, Siena
presents us with climbs and descents, winding streets, and
unexpected vistas. The Sienese were proud of their city and
its reputation as a religious, charitable, and intellectual
center. During the late thirteenth and the fourteenth cen-
turies, the city seems to have been governed fairly and
justly by civic-minded citizens.

The city of Venice (fig. 1.10 and see Map III, p. 14), is
unique in its position. With buildings supported by
wooden piles in a lagoon along the Adriatic shore, Venice
had no need for city walls or the massive house construc-
tion of mainland towns. The result was an architecture
whose freedom and openness come as a surprise when
compared to the fortress-like character of many Italian
cities. The great S-shaped form that divides Venice is the
Grand Canal, along which the city’s wealthiest citizens
built their palaces (see figs. 15.8, 15.59).

In the thirteenth century, Rome (see Map IV on p. 15)
was still relatively unimportant, and during the period
from 1309 to 1377, when the popes were resident in

1.8. GIUSEPPE ZOCCHI. The Piazza of Florence Cathedral in 1 754, with the Baptistery and Bell Tower, during the Procession of Corpus
Domini, June 23. 1754. Engraving, I 8 V 2 x 26 5 k" (40.71 x 60.75 cm). During this procession the relics of St. John the Baptist were carried from
the Cathedral to the Baptistery and then returned to the Cathedral. The vantage point in this view is imaginary, for the Cathedral complex is
surrounded by buildings.

As the center of Florentine worship and as an important civic monument, the Duomo complex, with Baptistery, Bell Tower, and Cathedral,
became an important repository for Florentine art, including balconies for musical performance and monuments to individuals (see figs. 2.39
10.19, 11.3).

22 * THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

1.9. Aerial view of Siena showing the Palazzo Pubblico (City Hall). Compare to Map IV, p. 15.

1.10. Aerial view of Venice showing S. Marco and the Doge’s Palace. Compare to Map III, p. 14.

PRELUDE: ITALY AND ITALIAN ART * 23

France, there was little artistic activity. Only in the later
fifteenth century did the papacy show a renewed vigor by
beginning to commission works of art there (see figs.
13.19, 14.16-14.18). By the beginning of the sixteenth
century, when the papacy was an important political and
territorial force, Rome had become the crucible for the full
expression of what is known as the High Renaissance.

The Guilds and the Status of
the Artist

The typical central and northern Italian city-state of the
late Middle Ages was dominated by guilds — independent
associations of businessmen, bankers, and artisan-manu-
facturers — in virtually every sphere of commercial and
political life. The Florentine Republic was founded on
commerce and ruled by the representatives of these guilds.
The guilds, however, were forced to accept the domination
of the Parte Guelfa, the single political entity permitted in
this proto -democracy. If considered restrictive by modern
standards, it was in advance of anything conceived of in
Western Europe since the days of Pericles and ancient
Athens. In Florence the position of the guilds was
expressed by the figures of their patron saints in niches at
Orsanmichele (see figs. 7.1, 7.8-7.9, 7.12-7.13, 7.15), a
civic building that held the food supply guaranteed by the
republic during an era when famine was a constant threat.

The seven major guilds (Arti, as they were called) com-
prised the Arte di Calimala, refiners of imported woolen
cloth; the Arte della Lana, wool merchants who manufac-
tured cloth; the Arte dei Giudici e Notai, for judges and
notaries; the Arte del Cambio, for bankers and money-
changers; the Arte della Seta, for silk weavers; the Arte dei
Medici e Speziali, for doctors and pharmacists; and the
Arte dei Vaiai e Pellicciai, for furriers. Painters were admit-
ted to the guild of doctors and pharmacists in 1314,
perhaps because they had to grind their colors just as phar-
macists ground materials for medicines. In the 1340s
painters were classified as dependents of physicians,
perhaps because painters and doctors enjoyed the protec-
tion of St. Luke, who was reputedly both artist and physi-
cian. Only in 1378 did the painters become an independent
branch within the Medici e Speziali.

The number of intermediate and minor guilds was con-
stantly shifting. Among the former, never admitted to the
rank of the major guilds, was the Arte di Pietra e Legname,
artisans who worked in stone and wood. This guild
included only those sculptors who specialized in these two
materials. A sculptor trained in metals such as bronze was
required to join a major guild, the Arte della Seta. Gold-
smiths and armorers each had their own guild.

At the bottom of the social structure, outside the guilds,
were the wool carders, on whose labors much of the
fortune of the city depended. Their situation in some ways
was comparable to that of the slaves of ancient Athens, for
although the Ciompi, as they were called, were permitted
to leave their employment, their activities were strictly
circumscribed by law. These workers, who constantly
hovered on the brink of starvation, revolted in 1378 and
founded a guild of their own, but this organization and its
participation in government were both short-lived. The oli-
garchy resumed control and put down the Ciompi by mass
slaughter and individual execution, thus resuming control
over the economic and political fortunes of the republic.

The guilds to which artists belonged were part of the
Mechanical Arts, not the rigidly defined Liberal Arts —
grammar, logic, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy,
and music — which were considered the only activities suit-
able for a gentleman in medieval feudal societies. In the

1.11. ANDREA PISANO (from a design by Giotto?). Art of
Sculpture, c. 1334-37. Marble, 32 3 A x 27 V 4 " (83.2 x 69.2 cm).
Removed from original location on the Campanile, Florence
(see fig. 3.25). Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Florence.

The Museo dell’Opera del Duomo is an Italian institution found in
many cities that houses works of art related to the town’s cathedral
complex. Florence’s is one of the richest, and includes works from the
Baptistery, Bell Tower, and Cathedral. Among the many important
works preserved there are Donatello’s The Penitent Magdalen and
Michelangelo’s Pieta (see figs. 12.6, 20.16).

THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

Italian city-states, however, being linked to the Mechanical
Arts represented a positive advantage to painters, sculp-
tors, and architects because of the greater independence
this made possible. To demonstrate how contemporary
work is related to the Genesis narrative, Florentine profes-
sions were represented in a series of reliefs on the exterior
of the campanile (bell tower) of the Cathedral of Florence.
Subsequent reliefs represent the early activities of human-
ity, with the Mechanical Arts among them, including
painting, sculpture (fig. 1.11), and architecture.

Later, painting and sculpture were included among the
Liberal Arts. In the late fourteenth century, the Florentine
writer Filippo Villani compared the painters of his era to
those who practiced the Liberal Arts. In 1404 the Paduan
humanist Pier Paolo Vergerio claimed — erroneously — that
painting had been one of the four Liberal Arts taught to
ancient Greek boys. At the end of the fifteenth century,
Leonardo da Vinci wrote eloquently about the importance
of the Liberal Arts for artists (see p. 446). The stakes were
economic as well as social; evidence suggests that the fif-
teenth-century artist was generally not well paid, although
in the sixteenth century Michelangelo (who claimed noble
ancestry), Titian (who was ennobled by the Holy Roman
Emperor), Raphael, and many other artists attained inter-
national fame, respect, and wealth. Artists who could attach
themselves to a princely court — such as Andrea Mantegna
and Leonardo da Vinci in the fifteenth century and Giorgio
Vasari and Benvenuto Cellini in the sixteenth — earned a
regular salary and could enforce their style on others. By
the late sixteenth century, academies under princely
patronage (see p. 649) began to replace the guilds.

The Artist at Work

Artists almost always worked on commission. It would
not have occurred to an artist of the thirteenth or
fourteenth century to paint a picture or carve a statue for
any reason other than to satisfy a patron, and an artist
who was a good manager would have had a backlog of
commissions. Those who were not good managers were
often late delivering finished works to their patrons. Artists
did not work in the kind of studios that we associate with
later centuries. The word itself, which means “study” in
Italian, only came into use in the seventeenth century,
when artists were members of academies. In the late
Middle Ages and throughout much of the Renaissance, an
artist worked in a bottega (shop) — a word that also
encompasses the apprentices and paid assistants who
labored under the direction of the master. Apprentices
entering the system could be as young as seven or eight,
and their instruction was paid for by their families. Until
the late sixteenth century, women were excluded from the

apprenticeship system, in part because they were forbidden
to join the appropriate guilds. Sometimes the bottega was
entered, like a shop, from the street and the artist at work
might be viewed by passersby. Artists might even exhibit
finished work to the public in their shops. Masaccio,
Lorenzo Ghiberti, Andrea del Castagno, Antonio del Pol-
laiuolo, and others might accept commissions for jewelry,
painted wooden trays (customarily given to new mothers;
see fig. 12.3), painted shields for tournaments, proces-
sional banners, or designs for embroidered vestments or
other garments. Artists also designed triumphal arches,
floats, and costumes for festivals that celebrated civic, reli-
gious, and private events (see fig. 12.28). Unfortunately,
little of this work survives; its loss is a huge lacuna in our
study and understanding of Italian Renaissance art. We do,
however, have a glimpse of such works and of a bottega of
the period in a fifteenth-century Florentine engraving (fig.
1.12). The workshop of a goldsmith/sculptor at the lower
left shows ewers, large plates, and elaborate belts being
offered for sale while an engraver is at work on a copper
plate to be used to make a print. Outside the shop, a bust
of a man wearing elaborate armor is displayed and the
master is carving a female portrait bust. Note how the
counter protrudes into the street and how the opening
could be closed by dropping a hinged flap held open by a
hook on the building’s facade. A painter is shown not in
his bottega , but working in situ on scaffolding, adorning
the structure with garlands and ribbons inspired by the
sculptural decoration found on ancient Roman structures.
He is accompanied by an assistant who is grinding pig-
ments. In the structure to the right, a bookseller displays
his wares on the lower floor, while above a musician plays
an organ. Mercury, shown in a cart drawn by hawks, is
protecting the arts as they were practiced in Florence, for
the towered building in the background is the Palazzo dei
Priori, the arched structure the Loggia della Signoria (see
figs. 2.40-2.41).

In the sixteenth century the bottega declined in impor-
tance because of the new emphasis on the creative genius
of the individual artist. By mid-century the new academic
conception of the artist dominated, and in his old age
Michelangelo would protest that he “was never a painter
or a sculptor like those who keep shops.”

The Products of the Painter’s
Bottega

The principal objects made by a painter in a bottega
were altarpieces. Such artworks functioned as public
religious images set upon altars in churches. An
altarpiece might represent the Virgin Mary or Christ or

PRELUDE: ITALY AND ITALIAN ART • Z J

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1.12. Attributed to BACCIO BALDINI. The Planet Mercury and
the Professions Practiced under His Sign. c. 1464-65. Engraving,

12 V4 x 8V2" (32.4 x 22 cm). British Museum, London.

This engraving is one of a series depicting what at the time were
considered to be the seven planets (Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun,
Mars, Jupiter, Saturn), and the various human activities over which
each had an influence. Soldiers were found under the control of
Mars, the ancient god of war, for example, while Venus controlled
lovers. Under the planet Mercury were found men of science, art, and
invention. The artist to whom the series is attributed, Baccio Baldini
(1436-c. 1487), was a goldsmith, a logical trade for someone
experimenting in the relatively new medium of engraving.

Documents reveal that in the late 1470s, there were at least
forty-four goldsmiths’ and silversmiths’ botteghe in Florence.

depict the saint to whom a particular church or altar was
dedicated, together with scenes from his or her life.

Up to the thirteenth century — with the exact date varying
from place to place — the priest stood behind the altar, facing
the congregation. With the celebrant in this position, there
was space on the altar only for the required crucifix, litur-
gical book, candles, and vessels of the Mass. Decoration,
including images and narrative scenes, was limited largely

to the front of the altar. This decoration could be sculpted
in stone or precious metals or painted on wooden panels
known as altar frontals (for a stone example, see fig. 15.19).

The new position of the priest left the altar table open
for large-scale religious images. In the thirteenth century,
the ritual was moved in front of the altar, so that the priest
had his back to the congregation. In the fourteenth
century, newly wealthy middle-class families began to pay
for altarpieces and even for individual family chapels in
which Mass could be said daily, sometimes many times
a day, for the souls of departed family members. The
crucifix, required for every altar, was a logical theme (see
fig. 3.26, far left scene). The thirteenth century also saw
tremendous growth in the veneration of the Virgin Mary.
Patrons began to commission the images of the Madonna
and Child that play so large a part in Italian art. If
the chapel was large, the side walls, the space above the
altarpiece, and the vaulted ceiling might be painted in
fresco with subjects related to that of the altarpiece, and by
the same artist. Many of the paintings treated in this book
come from such family chapels. Some are still in place.

Altarpieces and the smaller pictures intended for private
homes as aids to personal and familial devotions were
almost always composed of wooden panels painted in
tempera. Two panels joined together, offering two subjects,
were known as a diptych. More common, however,
were triptychs (three panels, see fig. 3.28) and polyptychs
(many panels), the architectural frames of which often
suggest the facades of Gothic churches (see figs. 4.5, 4.7).
Frames with classical pilasters became common during the
fifteenth century (see fig. 13.37).

An altarpiece on the main altar of a large church or
cathedral might have images and scenes painted on the
back as well. The custom of painting the predella, or base
of the altarpiece, with small narrative scenes, visible only
at close range, began early in the fourteenth century. At the
same time, the pinnacles began to be decorated with
angels, saints, or narrative scenes. The iconography of the
altarpiece was determined by the clergy or by the wealthy
family who ordered it, and even its shape could be subject
to the patron’s tastes.

Sometimes chapter houses intended for the meetings of
a community of monks or nuns (see figs 5.1, 5.8), and
sacristies, where the vessels, books, and vestments of the
liturgy were kept, were endowed as family chapels and
provided with altars (see fig. 6.16). The dining room in a
monastery or nunnery was called the refectory; as rooms in
which the members of the religious community ate silently,
while listening to sermons or readings, these were often
decorated with the scene of the Last Supper (see figs. 3.31,
11.1). The most famous example is by Leonardo da Vinci
(see fig. 16.23).

2,6 • THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

The Practice of Drawing

During the Renaissance, art was seldom made without
some kind of preparatory study. Before the sixteenth
century these studies were often made on parchment or
vellum (processed animal skin) that could be cleaned or
washed and used again. The few drawings that do survive
from the period before 1430 seem to be pages from what
are known as pattern books, compilations of drawings
that might be useful in creating new works (see figs.
15.12-15.13). These were preserved because they would
be useful in the bottega , not because they were considered
to be works of art in and of themselves. Surviving exam-
ples include copies of works of art, models for standard
compositions, and drawings of animals, birds, human
figures, and heads.

Drawing was regarded as the foundation of art by
Cennino Cennini, an artist who wrote II libro delVarte
(The Book of Art) in about 1400. Cennini devoted twenty-
eight brief chapters in his handbook to the subject, advis-
ing the painter to draw daily on paper, parchment, or panel
with pen, charcoal, chalk, or brush. He urged the artist to
draw from nature, from the paintings of the masters, or
from the imagination. A generation later the architect and
theorist Leonbattista Alberti, writing in Florence, spoke of
“concepts” and “models” (doubtless sketches and detailed
drawings) as customary preparations for painting and for
storie (figural compositions). In the mid-sixteenth century,
Giorgio Vasari described sketches as “a first set of draw-
ings that are made to find the poses and the first composi-
tion,” dashed down in haste by the artist, from which
drawings “in good form” will later be made.

The importance of preparatory drawings may well have
varied considerably from bottega to bottega , but the evi-
dence suggests that the fourteenth-century painter drew
such standard subjects as Madonnas, saints, and crucifixes
directly on the surface of the work to be painted. Such
drawings would be lost when the artist painted over them,
of course, but today’s technology sometimes allows a
glimpse of these underdrawings. The painter might also
have sketched complex figural compositions in small scale,
on paper or parchment, to be kept next to the painting as
a guide in the early stages. Dust, paint drippings, and the
wear and tear of the bottega would have rendered such
sketches hardly worth preserving.

By the mid-fifteenth century, the spolvero (Italian for
“dust off”), a new technique previously used for ornamen-
tal borders, came into broader usage. The spolvero was a
full-scale drawing of a complex detail, such as the head of
a main figure. The outlines of the drawing were pricked
with a sharp point and, after the drawing was placed on
the painting’s surface, it was tapped with a sponge or a

porous bag loaded with charcoal dust, thus transferring
rows of dots outlining the design. Surprisingly, these dots
can sometimes still be made out (see fig. 17.33).

In the early sixteenth century, the spolvero was replaced
by the cartoon (from the Italian word cartone , a heavy
paper), a full-scale drawing made on sheets of paper glued
together if necessary. The cartoon was pressed against the
surface to be painted and its outlines were transferred by
means of a metal point or stylus. Several cartoons and
fragments of cartoons survive, including one for the lower
figures in Raphael’s Philosophy (see figs. 17.47-17.48),
but they are few compared to the thousands that must
have been executed. Two important compositions by
Leonardo and Michelangelo are known only because
other artists made copies of their cartoons (see figs.
16.30, 16.42).

The drawings included in the later sections of this book
indicate the diversity of drawing styles and media practiced
by Renaissance artists, which range from the precisely con-
trolled study of light as it falls on drapery in a drawing by
Leonardo (see fig. 16.13) to the quick strokes used to
capture naturalistic movement in drawings by Raphael (see
figs. 16.46, 17.50). Because drawings serve so many
functions for artists, it should not be a surprise to realize
that a single artist may use a number of different materials
and styles, depending on the reason for creating the
drawing; perhaps the supreme example is Leonardo
da Vinci, sixteen of whose drawings are illustrated (see pp.
444—463). The majority of drawings that survive were
made by painters; preparatory sketches by sculptors are
much rarer. In creating a stone sculpture, the artist proba-
bly drew the profiles of the four sides directly on the block
before beginning to carve. For the creation of figures in
stone or bronze, models in clay, terra-cotta, or plaster in
various sizes were probably used as guides as the
work developed. Although many drawings by architects
survive, we know from documents that small-scale models
in three dimensions also guided builders as they erected
buildings. Sometimes these were made to be viewed by the
patron as part of a competition among architects. Surviv-
ing examples include the wooden model for the facade
Michelangelo designed for the Medicean church of San
Lorenzo (see fig. 18.3).

To our twenty-first-century eyes, many of these draw-
ings seem to be works of art in themselves: we admire the
long, flowing lines of Botticelli’s drawing of a walking
female figure (see fig. 13.25), the subtle three-dimensional-
ity of a head drawn by Perugino (see fig 1.20), and the
vigorous definition of the musculature of a nude figure by
Michelangelo (see fig. 16.43). These were intended,
however, as steps in the process of creating larger and more
complex works in more permanent materials.

PRELUDE: ITALY AND ITALIAN ART • ZJ

The Practice of Painting

Between 1200 and 1600, paintings were made from a
variety of materials. In the thirteenth century, tempera and
fresco were the techniques used, but by the end of the fif-
teenth century, oil paint gradually became more common.
By the end of the sixteenth century, the oil-on-canvas
technique, which during the seventeenth century became
the most popular painting medium in the West, had been
developed in Venice. Oil paint was a more flexible
medium, and the loose, suggestive brushstrokes in a paint-
ing made by the elderly Titian (see fig. 19.26) are com-
pletely different from the fine detail apparent in a painting
in tempera made in Venice more than two hundred years
earlier (see fig. 5.14).

The intricate procedures of the painter’s craft, as prac-
ticed in Florence and northern Italy during the late
medieval and much of the early Renaissance periods, are
described in detail by Cennini, who states that he studied
with Agnolo Gaddi — the son and pupil of Taddeo Gaddi,
who had been an assistant of Giotto — but wrote his trea-
tise in Padua, in northern Italy. The art of painting as
described by Cennini is how things were done in his own
Paduan bottega , but we have no other technical handbook
from this period, and what Cennini says, although not
necessarily relevant to earlier periods or other centers,
must be read carefully.

CREATING A TEMPERA PAINTING. The
following description of the creation of a tempera painting
is based both on Cennini’s description and evidence from
surviving examples of the technique. The first step after
the design was approved by the patron was the construc-
tion by a carpenter of panels of finely morticed and sanded
poplar, linden, or willow wood (fig. 1.13). At this
time, the frame was also constructed and attached
to the panels. The panels and frame were then covered
with gesso, a mixture of finely ground plaster and glue.
Sometimes the gesso was covered with a surface of linen,
itself soaked in gesso and then covered with still more
gesso. When dry, the surface could be given a finish as
smooth as ivory.

Cennini is explicit about how to compose a single figure
on a panel. The underdrawing began with a piece of char-
coal tied to a reed or stick, which gave the artist sufficient
distance from the panel to allow him to judge the compo-
sition as it developed. Shading was done by means of light
strokes, erasures with a feather. When the design was
acceptable, the feather could erase all but dim traces of the
original strokes, and the drawing could then be reinforced
with a pointed brush dipped in a wash of ink and water;
the brush was made of hairs from the tail of a gray squir-

1.13. Diagram of a tempera panel dissected to show principal
layers: a. wooden panel; b. gesso, sometimes reinforced with linen;
c. underdrawing; d. gold leaf; e. underpainting; 1. final layers
of tempera.

rel. After the panel was swept free of charcoal, the painter
shaded in the drapery folds and some of the shadow on the
face with a blunt brush with the same wash, “and thus,”
Cennini says, “there will remain to you a drawing that will
make everyone fall in love with your work.”

The next step, before any additional painting took place,
was the application of gold; in panel paintings of the thir-
teenth, fourteenth, and early fifteenth centuries, the back-
ground behind the figures and the haloes around the heads
of saints were almost invariably gold leaf, applied in small
sheets over bole, a red sizing or glue. Gold was used
because of its value and beauty and because its luminosity
suggested the light of heaven. Lines incised around the
contours of the figures and haloes guided the gilder. In
many paintings, the slight overlapping of these gold sheets
can still be discerned. The gold leaf tends to wear thin if
tempera paintings are cleaned, and their backgrounds

28 • THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

sometimes display hints of the red bole. In the thirteenth
century, gold haloes and sometimes parts of the back-
ground were incised to make a pattern in relief, but by
about 1330 these areas were decorated using low-relief
punches shaped like flowers, stars, cusped Gothic arches,
and other patterns to emboss their designs into the gold
surface. The fact that the gilded background was done
before the painting meant that the composition could be
changed only with great difficulty.

When the gilding of the background was complete, the
painter would build up the actual painting in thin layers of
tempera: ground colors mixed with egg yolk. Because yolk
dries rapidly, the painter could not easily change a form or
correct mistakes and the tiny individual strokes of the
brush, again made of gray squirrel hair, can still be seen if
you examine a tempera painting closely. Generally parallel
and seldom overlapping, these brushstrokes follow the
forms of flesh or drapery in concentric curves.

Cennini instructed the artist painting drapery to make
three dishes of the chosen color, the first full strength, the
second mixed half-and-half with white, and the third an
equal mixture of the first two, thus accounting for dark,
light, and intermediate tones. The highlights, brushed on
last in white or near-white or sometimes even yellow or
gold, have inevitably been the first elements to disappear in
the rough cleaning to which most old pictures have been
subjected. The terra verde (green earth) used for the under-
painting of the flesh created the unusual greenish flesh
tones characteristic of this period (see fig. 2.11). Cennini
also instructed the painter how to achieve an effect of iri-
descent drapery by using a different color for highlights
from that employed for darker areas (as can be seen best in
frescoes by Giotto and others; see fig. 3.13). The methods
Cennini described reveal the slow, painstaking approach
required for painting in tempera.

Blue was a special problem. The two available pigments
were both imported and expensive: azurite came from
Germany, and ultramarine, which was as costly as gold
(sometimes more so), was produced by grinding lapis lazuli
imported from Afghanistan. Both were customarily mixed
with white, as Cennini describes, although in the case of
the Virgin’s mantle, which was typically painted blue to
represent her as Queen of Heaven, the white was often
omitted (see fig. 4.17). In most early altarpieces her mantle
has turned dark grayish-green through the transformation
of the egg medium over time. By the end of the fourteenth
century, apparently, painters began to notice the gradual color
change, and in most later paintings the Virgin’s blue mantle
was painted with materials that retain their intended hue.
Varnish was applied to tone down the fresh bright colors
and flashing gold of tempera altarpieces; varnish has even
been found on thirteenth-century panels beneath a layer of

fourteenth-century repainting. When a painting was dis-
played in a church, candle smoke would slowly obscure
the colors.

Although a small panel of the Madonna and Child by
Duccio di Buoninsegna (fig. 1.14) shows some damage, the
surface seems to be well preserved and demonstrates the
unusual skin tones found when early Italian painting was
under the profound influence of Byzantine art, as will
be discussed in Chapter 2. The frame is original, which
is exceptional in a work of this age. The damage along
the lower edge was caused by burning candles when the
work was used for personal devotion in the home,
monastery, or nunnery.

1.14. DUCCIO DI BUONINSEGNA. Madonna and Child.
c. 1300. Tempera and gold on wood, with original frame, 11 x 8"
(27.9 x 20.3 cm). New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, purchase
(2004.442).

This recent acquisition by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New
York joins an impressive collection of Italian Late Medieval and
Renaissance paintings, as well as sculptures, small bronzes, and even
an intarsia studio (see figs. 14.31-14.32 for a similar example). The
Metropolitan Museum is among the world’s most impressive because
its collections include works of high quality from virtually all periods
of world history.

PRELUDE: ITALY AND ITALIAN ART * 29

CREATING A FRESCO PAINTING. Altarpieces
forced painters to work with meticulous care in tempera
over months and even, for larger works such as Duccio’s
Maesta (see figs. 4.2-4.11), years, but in the medium of
fresco they were required to work more quickly. According
to Cennini, who described standard procedures probably
practiced by Giotto and his followers, fresco (the Italian
word means “fresh”) was the most delightful technique,
probably because the painter could pour out ideas with
immediacy, vivacity, and intensity. A fresco may appear
detailed when viewed from the floor, but when examined
closely, it becomes apparent that it was executed at con-
siderable speed. Most Italian fresco painters could manage
an approximately life-sized figure in two days — one for the
head and shoulders, the second for the rest. Counting an
additional day for the background architecture or land-
scape, one can devise a rule of thumb that calculates the
amount of time involved in painting a fresco by multiply-
ing the number of foreground figures by three days. Some
painters, such as Masaccio, who finished the Expulsion at
the Brancacci Chapel in Florence in only four days,
worked even faster (see figs. 8.7, 8.13-8.14). Michelan-
gelo’s painting of the Creation of Sun , Moon, and Plants
on the Sistine Chapel Ceiling (see fig. 17.34) was com-
pleted in seven days.

In creating a fresco (fig. 1.15), the thirteenth- or four-
teenth-century painter seems to have painted directly on
the wall without preparatory drawings on paper beyond
the kind needed for painting on a panel. But if the subject
were unusual, requiring new compositional inventions or
perhaps prior approval of the patron, more detailed draw-
ings may have been made. The painter, standing on scaf-
folding (see fig. 1.12), probably drew rapidly on a wall
whose masonry had been covered with a rough coat of
plaster called arriccio. On this surface the painter could lay
out the principal divisions of the area to be painted with
the aid of vertical and horizontal lines created by snapping
a long cord suffused with chalk against the wall; assistants
held the cord at either end. Artists interested in establish-
ing recession in perspective would apply the same tech-
nique, using a string tied to a nail for the vanishing point
(for an example in which the nail hole is still visible using
binoculars, see fig. 13.36). Then, with or without the aid
of preliminary sketches, the painter drew the composition
rapidly with a brush dipped into pale, watery earth color
that would leave only faint marks.

Over these first indications, the painter could draw the
rough outlines of the figures lightly with a stick of char-
coal, further establishing the poses and principal masses of
drapery. The third stage was a reddish monochromatic
painting called a sinopia (pi. sinopie ), after the name of the
Greek city Sinope in Asia Minor, the source of the finest

1.15. Diagram of a partially finished fresco at the beginning of a
day’s work, with joints between previous days’ work indicated in
heavy lines, a. masonry wall; b. arriccio; c. painted intonaco of
upper tier; d. giomata of new intonaco ready for color; e. previous
day’s giomata; f. underdrawing in sinopia on arriccio layer.

red-earth color. In these sinopie , artists established muscu-
lature, features, and ornament, sometimes with the broad
strokes of a coarse- bristle brush, sometimes with shorter,
finer strokes.

In the process of detaching frescoes threatened by damp-
ness or other problems from the walls on which they were
painted, some sinopie have been brought to light (fig. 1.16;
fig. 1.17 shows the completed fresco for comparison). In
their freshness and freedom, sinopie are sometimes more
attractive to modern eyes than the finished frescoes that
covered them. If a sinopia varies considerably from its
fresco, this may be because the painter decided to change
the position of a limb or a piece of drapery, or perhaps
because the patron complained about some iconographic
or compositional aspect of the original design.

As the work progressed, the artist or an assistant
covered a section of sinopia each morning (or the previous
evening) with an area of fresh, smooth plaster called
intonaco , leaving the painter with nothing but a memory —
or some good working drawings — as a guide to paint that
area. Each new patch of intonaco is called a giomata (pi.
giornate). On any given day, a fresco in progress would
consist of an area of finished work, an area of sinopia , and
one blank giomata of fresh intonaco that had to be painted
before the plaster became too dry late in the afternoon.
The joints between giornate are often visible because the
painter removed with a knife whatever intonaco remained
unpainted when the light failed. The edge was beveled to

30 • THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

keep from crumbling. When the new giornata was applied
that evening or the next morning, a soft, rounded edge
adjoined the bevel. Specialists examining a fresco’s surface
on scaffolding can often determine not only the limits of
each giornata , but also the order in which they were com-
pleted. Sometimes the divisions between the giornate
follow the contours of a head or figure, but more fre-
quently they fall between two figures or heads. An entry in
the diary of the sixteenth-century painter Jacopo Pon-
tormo illuminates the process, listing briefly what he
accomplished each day and, on occasion, what he ate:

30th Tuesday I started the figure

Wednesday as far as the leg

On the first of August I did the leg, and at night I had
supper with Piero, a pair of boiled pigeons.

Friday I did the arm that leans

Saturday the head of the figure that’s below that’s like this
[accompanied by a drawing]

Sunday I had supper at Danielle’s with Bron, we had
meatballs.

1.16, 1.17. ANDREA DEL CASTAGNO. Resurrection , Crucifixion , Entombment . 1447. Sinopia drawing for fresco (top) and finished fresco
above), width of wall 3 9' 6" (10.25 m). See fig. 11.1 for complete view of refectory wall of Refectory of Sant’Apollonia, Florence.

PRELUDE: ITALY AND ITALIAN ART * 3 I

The pigments were mixed with water, and in the course
of painting would sink into the fresh intonaco . At this
point a chemical reaction took place: the carbon dioxide of
the air combined with the calcium hydrate in the plaster,
producing calcium carbonate as the plaster hardened. This
technique is known as true fresco. When dry, fresco colors
did not look the same as when they were first laid down on
the wet plaster and the quality and luminosity of color
depended on exactly how dry the plaster was when the
painter applied that color. The painter also had to consider
the humidity of the interior of the church or palace; fres-
coes could not be painted in cold weather in unheated inte-
riors. Not all colors were water-soluble, and some had to
be painted on the dry plaster — a procedure known as a
secco . Areas of a secco were, sooner or later, in danger of
peeling off.

Fresco painters worked from the top down to keep
paint from dripping onto completed sections. The scaf-
folding was dismantled as lower levels were painted. The
result was a tendency to compose in horizontal strips.
The background landscape and architecture and some-
times the haloes would be painted before the heads of the
foreground figures. Sometimes the painter started in
the center and worked out, sometimes from the sides
toward the center. The piecemeal nature in which a
fresco had to be painted became a drawback during the
fifteenth century, when visual unity, including light
and atmosphere, was considered essential to good paint-
ing. Perhaps true fresco’s limitations explain why
Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper (see figs. 16.23-16.25)
was not painted using this technique. Scaffolding pre-
vented a painter from stepping back to view the whole, but
occasionally an impulsive artist went over the edge and
was injured, as was Michelangelo when painting the Last
Judgment on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel (see fig.
20.1). According to Vasari, a painter named Barna da
Siena was killed in such a fall. When faced with a deadline,
some masters did a great deal of a secco painting over
fresco underpainting.

Cennini’s testimony suggests that before the fifteenth
century painters did not make preparatory drawings but
drew directly on the intonaco in sinopia. Conservation
work, however, has shown that a number of fourteenth-
century fresco cycles, including some by Giotto in Florence
(see figs. 3.20-3.23), had no sinopie under the intonaco . It
seems that it would have been useless to create detailed
sinopie for large frescoes like those in figures 3.1, 4.30,
4.37, and 5.1, because the beams and boards of the
scaffolding would have concealed any view of the whole
from the floor. For such colossal paintings, detailed
preparatory plans would have been indispensable. Any
preparatory drawings actually used in painting a fresco

would have been exposed to damage on the scaffolding
and few survive. Spolveri gradually replaced sinopie ,
although in the middle of the fifteenth century both were
sometimes used in the creation of a single fresco.

The spolvero and later the cartoon (perhaps cut into sec-
tions if too large to be easily manageable) were brought
onto the scaffolding and the outlines transferred either by
pouncing or by incising with a stylus in the case of the
cartoon as each section of intonaco went on the wall. The
painter was then free to lay on colors without having to
remember the composition of a hidden section of sinopia
under the intonaco , and with the spolvero or cartoon still
at hand for guidance. Even with these techniques, however,
evidence reveals that painters often varied from the con-
tours they had pounced or incised when they actually
applied paint; Raphael’s cartoon is missing three figures
found in the finished fresco (see figs. 17.47-17.48).

CREATING AN OIL PAINTING. Because oil
paint did not become important in Italy until the late fif-
teenth century, we will delay a more detailed discussion
until it begins to affect the appearance of paintings. It will
suffice to point out that oil painting was first developed in
northern Europe and that Italian collectors, including the
Medici, owned early paintings in this technique. Italian
patrons sometimes commissioned oil paintings from
Northern artists, and the arrival in Florence in the early
1480s of one of these works (see fig. 13.32) helped direct
Florentine painters’ attention to the possibilities of the
oil technique.

The same powdered pigments used in tempera painting
were used for works in oil, the only difference being that
the pigments were mixed with linseed oil instead of egg
yolk. Oil offered several advantages: first, because it was
slower-drying than tempera, it was easier to blend colors,
leading to the possibility of greater detail; second, the
thickness of the paint depended on how much linseed oil
was added, meaning that the painter could have a very thin
liquid or a thick one, according to need; third, oil is a
translucent medium, so oil paintings could have a greater
depth and richness of color than was possible with
tempera. The earliest Italian works executed largely in oil
were painted on the same kind of gessoed wooden support
used for tempera painting but, because of the problems
with humidity in Venice, Venetian painters eventually
began painting on a canvas support.

Leonardo da Vinci was among the first Italian artists to
use oil extensively (see p. 452), but it was Antonello da
Messina (see pp. 412-15), who had studied with one or
more Flemish artists, who brought the technique to Venice,
where it had an almost immediate impact on Giovanni
Bellini and others (see p. 418). The innovations in oil

32 * THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

painting made by the later Venetian painters — especially
Giorgione, Titian, Tintoretto, and Veronese — transformed
the history of artistic development (see pp. 592-637). The
Venetian technique of oil on canvas would dominate Euro-
pean painting well into the twentieth century.

The Practice of Sculpture

The stone sculpture created in Italy during the Renaissance
was in most cases made from blocks of marble quarried in
the mountains near Carrara, near Pisa (fig. 1.18). While
ready access to such a fine material was a definite advan-
tage to sculptors, moving large blocks of stone down from
the mountains was difficult and placed limits on the size of
the blocks that could be transported. Michelangelo’s
David (see fig. 16.1) was carved from one of the largest
blocks quarried during the Renaissance, at least 17 feet tall
and relatively broad, but also quite shallow, which helps
explain why the movement of Michelangelo’s figure is
largely two-dimensional. In his later works, when deeper
blocks quarried to his specifications were available to him,
Michelangelo created figures that twisted in space (see figs.
16.41, 18.16).

One fourteenth-century relief depicts a sculptor (see
fig. 1.11) at work on a statue. The figure being carved does
not stand vertically, as it will when completed, but in the
most convenient position for carving — reclining at a diag-
onal; the same position is evident in a print showing a
sculptor at work on a female bust portrait (see fig. 1.12).
Even as late as the sixteenth century, Michelangelo worked
on some of his statues in this manner — a method that both
permitted the sculptor to approach every section easily
without climbing and gave every hammer blow the benefit
of gravity.

Sculptors might have begun a project by drawing and/or
making small models in clay or even a full-sized version in
clay or plaster. A complex device composed of adjustable
iron rods could be used to enlarge (in the case of a small
model) or transfer (in the case of a full-scale model) the
model to the block. The outlines of the subject could also
be sketched in charcoal on the surfaces of the block, from
which the sculptor would then begin to carve away, first
with a pointed and then with a toothed chisel. Assistants
in the bottega may have completed the initial carving away
of excess material from the block. The parallel marks left
by the toothed chisel were removed with files and
the surface was then polished with pumice and straw. In
the case of Michelangelo’s unfinished works (see figs.
16.41, 18.16, 20.16-20.17), we are able to study both the
rough surface of the figures and the final surface
polish that Michelangelo intended. The word “sculptor,”
incidentally, did not come into common use until the
late fifteenth century; older documents use the term
tagliapietra (stonecutter).

A bronze sculpture cost approximately ten times as
much as a marble one. Bronze sculptures were made by
pouring the bronze, a mixture of copper and tin (and,
sometimes, lead, zinc, and/or pewter), heated to a temper-
ature of at least 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit (about 1,000
degrees centigrade), into a mold. Sculptors were generally
their own bronze founders, but for large or complex jobs,
specialists in bronze casting such as bell-makers or artillery
specialists may have assisted them.

To create a small, solid bronze figure or object, a
detailed wax model was made or a rough clay core,
covered with a thin layer of wax in which more specific
details had been defined. The wax was then covered
with a heat-resistant outer layer of plaster and sand or

1.18. View of the marble quarries near Carrara,
Tuscany. In 1518, Michelangelo was sent to
Carrara by Pope Leo X with orders to quarry
marble from Monte Altissimo (the name means
“the highest”), which was reported to have the
finest marble in this area. Between 1518 and
1520 the sculptor had to concentrate on
opening two roads, one that would lead up to
the finest veins and a second that would enable
the marble to be moved down the mountain to
a port on the coast. More recently, dynamite
and modem technology have been used to
access Monte Altissimo’s veins of fine marble.

PRELUDE: ITALY AND ITALIAN ART * 33

clay. Heat was then applied to melt away the wax, leaving
a mold into which molten bronze was poured. After
the mold was removed, the surface of the solid bronze
casting was cleaned and details refined with metal tools
(see below).

The initial step in creating a larger work began with the
artist’s production of a full-scale clay model, around which
a plaster mold would be constructed that could be
removed in sections so that smaller units could be cast sep-
arately and later joined by soldering (fig. 1.19). These sec-
tions were coated inside with a layer of wax. Separately, a
core of clay and shavings was built on a framework of iron
to provide support during the casting process. The thin
wax coating was then removed from the plaster mold and
fixed to the core with wires to make a statue of wax
around the core. This wax statue was then brushed with a
paste made of fine ash mixed with water, and around it
was made an exterior mold of clay and shavings supported
by an iron framework pinned and joined to that of the
core. Tubes called sprues allowed the wax to pass through
the outer mold. When this construction was heated, the
wax ran out, leaving the space between core and outer
mold for the melted bronze, which could be poured in
through several sprues simultaneously, as shown in figure
1.19, or passed through pipes from a furnace. For very
large pieces, sometimes the mold was placed in a pit in the
earth to make it easier for the heavy, hot metal to be
poured into the sprues prepared for it.

After the bronze had cooled, both core and mold could
be chipped away, leaving a series of pieces that could be
joined together to form a hollow bronze statue. The sprues
were then cut away. If the cast had holes because the
molten bronze had failed to flow freely, these could be
repaired (such patches are visible on the legs of Donatello’s
David , for example; see fig. 10.22), and complex protru-
sions could be cast separately and attached at this point.
The rough surfaces of the bronze were then filed away and
polished by a process known as chasing, and details such
as strands of hair and the decorative edging of garments
would be refined by scratching into or incising the bronze.
The technique described here is similar to that used by the
ancient Greeks and Romans.

The sculpture could be left in its natural bronze state,
but sometimes details or even the whole were gilded. This
was an elaborate process: details could be gilded by a
means similar to that used for panels, but larger areas were
usually fire-gilt. This technique required the application
of an alloy of gold and mercury; when heated, the mercury
was dispersed, leaving the sculpture covered with a
thin but durable coating of gold. Such a process is
now known to be dangerous because of the poisonous
nature of mercury.

1.19. Conjectural reconstruction of a cross-section of the bronze
casting process for the head, bust, and upper arms of the figure of
Judith from Donatello’s Judith and Holofemes (see fig. 12.7). The
beige areas in the center indicate the form of the piece to be cast.
The hatched areas are the outer mold for the piece, and the red lines
are the metal pins that hold the inner mold to the outer one after the
wax has been melted out. The black arrows at the top and black
areas suggest how the hot bronze would have flowed through the
sprues and out at the bottom.

The difficulties of casting in bronze were described in
dramatic detail by Benvenuto Cellini in his Autobiography
(written 1558-1562). Although his writings contain a
certain amount of exaggeration, Cellini’s works demon-
strate the high level of accomplishment possible in bronze
sculpture by the late sixteenth century (see fig. 20.22).

The Practice of Architecture

During the Renaissance, new buildings were built (or
begun) and old ones remodeled. New city centers were in
a few instances constructed (see figs. 10.10-10.11), while
ideal cities, destined to remain dreams, were described in
treatises or represented in drawings, prints, or paintings
(see fig. 14.30). Whether built or envisioned, Renaissance
structures consistently offered references to antiquity
through the use of classical proportions and Roman
orders, arches, and decoration. Squares that recall Roman
forums were built, and direct imitations of Roman tri-
umphal arches were created for the festivities of Renais-
sance sovereigns. Italian architects were inspired by the
buildings of ancient Rome, some of which were visible in

34 * THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

a more complete state during the Renaissance than they are
today (see fig. 12.19). In addition, a text on architecture by
the first-century BCE architect and theorist Vitruvius sur-
vived and was carefully read not only by architects but also
by humanists. The new classicizing buildings of the Renais-
sance were based on drawings of Roman structures, but in
style could vary from exactly measured, archaeologically
correct views to designs that added highly personal embell-
ishments to the original model.

Italian architects before the High Renaissance, however,
were little interested in the fundamentals of Roman impe-
rial building, especially the system of vaulting used by the
Romans to roof vast interior spaces. In comparison with
the richly articulated architecture of masses and spaces
developed during the Roman Empire, continued at Ravenna,
and — technically at least — surpassed in the Gothic cathe-
drals of France and other northern European countries,
Italian architecture of the late Middle Ages and the Early
Renaissance remained, essentially, an architecture of large
spaces enclosed by flat walls. In fact, the word used by
Renaissance architects, patrons, and theorists for “to build”
was murare (literally “to wall”), and in Italy a builder is still
a muratore . Often these Italian structures were roofed by
the same simple timber constructions used in Early Christ-
ian basilicas, with a flat, wooden ceiling suspended from
the beams (see figs. 6.17-6.18). Even when constructing a
vault, the Italian architect was averse to the rich system of
supports — the so-called exoskeleton — of a French Gothic
church with its flying buttresses and pinnacles. The
massive masonry vaults of the cathedrals of Florence and
Siena, for example, would have collapsed without the iron
tie-rods that helped to hold the structure together (see figs.
2.38 and 5.15, where the tie-rods are clearly visible).

It seems that when the builders of Italian churches in the
early part of our period laid out the foundations of their
structures, they were often not exactly certain how high
the walls and columns were to reach or how the interior
spaces were to be vaulted. The calculation of spaces and
forms was based on mathematical principles of sequence
and proportion (see p. 154) rather than on any notion of
the requirements of day-to-day living. The surviving draw-
ings of architectural plans, elevations, perspectives, and
details (see figs. 3.24, 16.8, 17.13, 18.2) take on a special
importance when, as often happened, the building itself
was never built (see fig. 6.20). In addition, the back-
grounds of paintings sometimes offer views of architecture,
although some of these painted structures are clearly
unbuildable (see figs. 14.16, 16.44). Sadly, the dreams of
most Renaissance architects for the rebuilding of Italian
cities were prevented by circumstance — war, internal
conflict, lack of funds — from being realized (see figs.
14.30, 15.61).

Although work was sometimes carried out under the
general direction of an architect, often the key figure was
a mason or builder — a member of the Arte di Pietra e
Legname. Rarely, however, did such a technician rise to the
status of architect. There was, in fact, no word for archi-
tect in the fourteenth century, only capomaestro (literally
“head-master”). Almost all the most inventive architects
discussed here began as painters, sculptors, or, in the case
of Michelangelo, both; some came to architecture late
and — impressive as their architectural achievements
were — continued to paint or sculpt. Often they were
appointed capomaestro without training or experience in
building. The modern institution of an architectural office
was unknown in the Renaissance, and the principal
method of communication between architect and builder
was a detailed wooden model, a number of which survive
(see figs. 18.3, 20.8, 20.11). Military architecture was
given over to untrained builders, who made themselves
into expert engineers, and the beauty, brilliance, and prac-
ticality of Renaissance fortifications deserves further study.

The construction of a large building demanded extensive
scaffolding. In the early period the temporary platforms on
which the workers stood were often supported by beams
inserted into square holes left in the structure for just this
purpose; you can see such scaffolding in use at the top of
Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s Allegory of Good Government in
the City (see fig. 4.30). As the wall rose in height, the
beams would be raised, and the holes left open so that
repairing the structure could be accomplished without
rebuilding scaffolding from the ground. These holes are
still visible in some medieval structures. The wall, free-
standing with a minimum of external buttressing or none
at all, was the basis of Italian architectural thinking until it
was replaced in the High Renaissance by the development
of the radial plan, in which large interior spaces radiated
out from a central, domed core (see, for example, figs.
17.11-17.15, 20.9).

Often the fagade of an Italian church or palace seems to
have little to do with the building behind it, and the side
walls stand without articulation, flat and relatively
untreated (see fig. 2.27). The facade was not considered an
essential part of the structure but was, rather, a ceremonial
decoration for the piazza before it, like the shrines still
erected in south Italian streets to celebrate the festival of a
saint. The facade sometimes does not even have the same
number of stories as the building behind it, and it may
tower far above, supported from behind by iron rods fas-
tened to the roof beams. It is sometimes even lower than
the bulk of the actual building.

In a sense, the wall is the beginning and the end of much
of Italian architecture, and it forms as well a broad field
for fresco painting and a background for altarpieces and

PRELUDE: ITALY AND ITALIAN ART * 35

sculpture. The wall is the plane from which perspective
thinking starts and new, harmonious spaces are created in
a world projected beyond its surface, into which the
observer is visually invited to step (see figs. 13.34-13.37).
The wall is the screen on which, in a series of brilliant fres-
coes painted during this period, Italian civic life and the
Italian landscape are preserved through the fertility of the
Italian imagination.

Printmaking in the Renaissance

The arts of sculpture and architecture as practiced in the
Renaissance were largely commissioned by and paid for by
elite members of society; while modestly priced paintings
are documented during this period, few examples survive.
Prints made from wooden blocks or copper plates on
paper, however, could be mass produced and were there-
fore available to a broader spectrum of society. Such prints
were used to illustrate books and pamphlets (see fig.
13.28) or as independent images (see fig. 8.22). The more
modest of these works are usually anonymous, but in other
cases the artists are known (see figs. 13.5, 17.60) or the
works can be attributed to specific individuals. Some prints
reproduce works of art and help to explain how contem-
porary and later artists knew about famous paintings and
sculptures that they had never seen (see figs. 16.26, 17.60).
Others, such as a print after a design by Parmigianino (see
fig. 18.52), are demonstrations of technical proficiency —
yet another indication of how Renaissance artists desired
to impress viewers with their skill.

The two most common printmaking techniques used
during our period are engraving and the woodblock print.
For the former, a special pointed tool known as a burin
was used to scratch sharp grooves into a copper plate. In a
few cases artists experimented with a drypoint needle,
which created raised metal, known as the burr, on either
side of the groove; while this created a certain soft and pos-
sibly atmospheric effect, the burr wore away quickly when
the plate was printed. When completed, the engraved plate
was covered with thick black ink and the excess wiped
away, leaving the ink in the grooves. When a piece of
slightly moistened paper was placed on the inked copper-
plate and paper and plate were run through a printing
press (or rubbed by hand), the ink in the grooves was
transferred to the paper, which was then dried. To create a
woodblock print, a chisel was used to cut away the surface
in those parts of the design that were to be left neutral,
leaving raised surfaces that were then inked. Moist paper
was then applied and block and paper run through a press
or rubbed by hand. The paper was then lifted from the
block and dried. The two techniques offer different effects:
in an engraving the forms are defined by line, while in a

woodblock print the image is established through bold
black or colored patterns against the neutral ground. The
more complex technique of chiaroscuro woodblock
printing, which required several woodblocks, is discussed
on p. 580.

The woodblock print illustrated in figure 13.28 was
included in a pamphlet — part of the publishing explosion
that occurred in the fifteenth century. The use of moveable
metal type was pioneered by the German goldsmith and
printer Johannes Gutenberg, whose famous Bible was
published in 1455. This technique rapidly changed the pro-
duction of books, and the publishing of books and
pamphlets expanded exponentially in subsequent centuries.
Presses had been established in Rome by 1467, Venice by
1469, and Florence by 1471. By the end of the fifteenth
century, books were being published in more than seventy
Italian cities and towns. Wealthy families built up book
collections during the Renaissance and new structures
intended as libraries were constructed (see figs. 6.27, 18.12).

The Practice of History

Before proceeding with our examination of Renaissance
art, another kind of practice needs to be discussed: that of
history. The idea that history was worthy of study for its
own sake was a new phenomenon in the Renaissance.
While medieval theologians had defined the world of the
past and the present within the context of Christian goals
and institutions, Renaissance humanists defied these
narrow parameters, analyzing and assessing historical evi-
dence in search of answers that were not dependent on the
doctrines promulgated by the Church. They were inspired
in this research by the historical approach that they noted
in the works of ancient historians.

When Lionardo Bruni (see fig. 10.27), humanist chan-
cellor of Florence, wrote his History of the Florentine
People (published in 1444 by the Florentine Signoria), he
researched his subject, consulted historical documents, and
developed theories that placed Florence’s background
within a larger historical context. He argued, for example,
that Florence must have been founded during the Roman
Republic, relating it to what he knew of Greek political
practice and calling it “the new Athens on the Arno.”

In recent decades scholars have grown increasingly inter-
ested in historiography: the history and analysis of writing
history. No historian is a mere compiler of facts. Even the
choice of facts to include can be an indication of bias, and
in this the Renaissance was no exception. In a peninsula
dominated by autocratic rulers in other centers, for
example, it was important for Bruni to emphasize that
Florence was founded not in the ancient Roman
Imperial period but in the Republican period, just as it was

3 6 * THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

important for Renaissance Florentines to believe that their
Baptistery (see fig. 2.33) had been an ancient Roman
temple to Mars. Keeping this in mind, we can turn briefly
to the first historian of Italian art, Giorgio Vasari.

The Practice of Art History:
Giorgio Vasari

The name that will appear more often than any other in
this book is that of Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574), the first
historian of Italian Renaissance art. The writer’s family
name, Vasari, is derived from vasaio , “vase,” suggesting
that an ancestor had been a potter, and we know that
Vasari came from a family of artisans. Although he had a
distinguished career as a painter and architect (see figs.
20.40-20.43), he is best known for his work as a historian
and critic. In 1550, Vasari published the first edition of his
Lives of the Best Architects , Painters, and Sculptors ...
(Le vite de piu eccellenti architetti, pittori , e scultori ... ).
This two-volume work was more than 1,000 pages long
and featured biographies of 133 artists as well as brief
mentions of many others. The second, three-volume
edition (1564-68) of the Lives ran to about 1,500 pages
and included new information that Vasari had collected
through correspondence, research, and travel, as well as
discussion of such new categories of art as the temporary
decorations for weddings, triumphal entries, funerals,
and the many other pageants that played a role in Renais-
sance life. This edition also had woodcut portraits of
many artists.

Vasari established a number of approaches that continue
to influence the writing of art history, for better or — as
some critics would argue — for worse. He organized his
work around the individual artist in terms of biography,
character, and style. In many cases, he suggested that the
personality of the artist could be used to elucidate the
works he or she created. In addition, he evaluated the art,
distinguishing some artists and works as superlative.
Vasari also recognized that artists must be understood in
terms of the period in which they lived and worked. When
Frederick Hartt completed the first edition of this book in
1969, he followed Vasari’s precedent. As an artist himself,
Vasari was well aware of the sometimes difficult and
demanding role a patron could play in the creation of a
work of art, and in the Lives he emphasizes the importance
of patrons. In this seventh edition of Hartt’s book, the
names of patrons are given in captions as a reminder of
their essential role in the creation of many works of
Renaissance art.

Vasari explained the development of Renaissance art in
terms of a trajectory. The concept of historical develop-

ment or progress that he presented was derived from the
writings of ancient authors. While he found little of inter-
est in earlier Italian medieval art, Vasari argued that a
revival of art, based on a new interest in imitating nature,
had emerged in Tuscany in the works of Giotto and other
thirteenth- and fourteenth-century artists. This first phase
was followed in the fifteenth century by Vasari’s second
phase in which, to quote the author, “all things are done
better, with more invention and design, with a more beau-
tiful style and greater industry.” The culmination that
Vasari found in his third and final stage was, he
argued, made possible by the discovery and study of
ancient sculptures (see figs. 1.4-1. 6, 17.3-17.4). Vasari
pointed out that this final phase was exemplified in the
works of Michelangelo.

The biases that Vasari brought to his task were many,
however. While the artists of Florence were certainly the
leaders in many Renaissance developments and deserve a
special role in any history of Italian Renaissance art, the
pre-eminence that Vasari granted Florentine art was exag-
gerated. He dedicated his volumes to Cosimo I de’ Medici,
and throughout the biographies he privileged the role of
the Medici family in commissioning and collecting works
of art. Vasari’s Lives was intended to inform a broad
segment of the educated public about art, and it had a wide
and immediate circulation; responses to his comments on
German art, for example, were being written by German
writers as early as 1573. Several authors in Italy and other
European countries were inspired to write their own ver-
sions of the Lives. Vasari’s work continues to be a crucial
source of information and ideas.

In addition to his role as artist and author, Vasari was
one of the first collectors of drawings. In the Lives , he
pointed out that preliminary sketches were the initial
expression of the artistic idea, and he cited drawings in his
own collection that demonstrated a specific artist’s per-
sonal style and/or method. Vasari compiled his drawings
into volumes, mounting them on large pieces of paper and
enframing them with architectural and sculptural motifs
drawn in his own style (fig. 1.20). Sometimes he would
incorporate into this elegant presentation the woodcut
portrait of the artist taken from the Lives. In the example
illustrated here, Vasari’s frame features the broken pedi-
ment popular in sixteenth-century art and architecture (see
figs. 18.11, 19.27), and a reclining muscular figure
inspired by Michelangelo. By collecting drawings, Vasari
was emphasizing that everything an artist did, even a
drawing made in preparation for a larger work, as in this
example, was precious and should be preserved.

Vasari’s comments will often be quoted or mentioned in
this book. Because he knew personally many of the six-
teenth-century artists about whom he wrote, because he so

PRELUDE: ITALY AND ITALIAN ART * 37

often mentions the diligence with which he undertook his
task, and because he lived in a period much closer to the
developments of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth
centuries than we do, it is tempting to accept everything
that he has written. But, while many of his facts can be val-
idated through other evidence, some have been found to be
incorrect (see p. 271). His sources were often incomplete
or inaccurate, and some of his contacts may not have told

him the truth. In general he is weaker on the development
of Renaissance art outside of the city of Florence than he
is on the events of his hometown. Vasari’s personalized
history of Italian Renaissance art must be read, like all his-
tories, with an understanding of his cultural background
and motivations in mind. Despite his flaws, however,
Vasari is our earliest and most provocative source on the
development of a beloved tradition of art.

1.20. PIETRO PERUGINO. Head of a Man with a Long Beard, c. 1494. Drawing in silverpoint and pen on brown-prepared paper, heightened
with white and in a mount by Giorgio Vasari, 10 3 /4 x 7" (24.7 x 17.9 cm). British Museum, London. Vasari’s book of drawings was ultimately
taken apart and the drawings scattered in various collections. In some cases Vasari’s frames were lost or damaged. In this example, only the upper
part of the frame survived; the lower part is a restoration. For works by Perugino, see figs. 14.16-14.20.

THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

PART ONE

THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

SIMONE MARTINI and
UPPOMEMMJ.
Annunciation
(sec fig, 4,17).

2. Duecento Art in Tuscany and Rome

3. Florentine Art of the Early Trecento

4. Sienese Art of the Early Trecento

5. Later Gothic Art in Tuscany and Northern Italy

102

1 36

' -

DUECENTO ART IN TUSCANY

AND ROME

T he first manifestations of a new style in paint-
ing and sculpture seem to have taken place in
Tuscany. This region in central Italy between
the Apennines and the Mediterranean corre-
sponds roughly to an area that was inhabited
in ancient times by the Etruscans, from whom the medieval
Tuscans were in part descended and from whom the name
Tuscany is derived. Shortly after 1100, this region became
the scene of new political developments when the cities of
Pisa, Lucca, Pistoia, Prato, and Florence constituted them-
selves as free communes or republics. Liberated from
control by the counts of Tuscany after the death of Count-
ess Matilda in 1115, they owed a somewhat shadowy alle-
giance to either the Holy Roman Emperor or, in the case of
Florence, the pope. On a day-to-day basis, however, these
affiliations were often irrelevant. Siena also eventually
established itself as an independent republic free from
the domination of the bishop and neighboring feudal
lords, while the success of Florentine commercial endeav-
ors led to a growing spirit of independence among the
city’s citizens.

Opposite: 2.1. NICOLA PISANO. Pisa Baptistery pulpit. 1260.
White Carrara marble, variegated red marble, polished granite,
originally with inlaid and painted highlights, patterned glass,
height approx. 15’ (4.6 m). t Baptistery, Pisa. Commissioned by
Archbishop Federigo Visconti. The inscription on the pulpit reads:

“In the year 1260 Nicola Pisano carved this noble work. May so
greatly gifted a hand be praised as it deserves.”

This is one of many works of Italian art still located in the structures
for which they were created. The original settings give these works an
important sense of context that would be lost were they moved to a
museum. To understand individual pieces, it is sometimes helpful to
remember what other works were originally found in the same context.

Within these new Tuscan city-states a struggle for power
developed between the merchant class and the old nobility,
and in this conflict a premium was placed on the value and
initiative of the individual. The new middle class that arose
during the thirteenth century provided a rich market and a
powerful incentive for the new art — an impulse encour-
aged by the transformation of personal and communal reli-
gious life during this period through the teachings of St.
Francis of Assisi (d. 1226) and St. Dominic (1170-1221)
and the religious orders they founded.

The term Italians use to refer to the thirteenth century
(the 1200s) is “Duecento,” an abbreviation based on the
term “Mille-duecento” (one thousand, two hundred). Tre-
cento is used for the fourteenth century, Quattrocento for
the fifteenth, and Cinquecento for the sixteenth. The qual-
ities of Duecento painting came to be appreciated more
fully in the twentieth century; thirteenth-century Italian art
was influenced by Byzantine art — the painting of the
highly developed Greek-speaking culture that flourished in
Constantinople at this time — and the Italian variation on
this tradition had previously been judged provincial and
stagnant. According to Vasari, painters from the East (he
called them “Greeks”) had even been called to Florence,
where Cimabue, whom Vasari considered the first truly
Florentine painter, watched them work and then surpassed
what Vasari called their “rude” manner. Vasari knew little,
of course, about the intellectual and refined quality of later
Byzantine painting, but there is a germ of truth in his story.
Greek mosaicists had been called to the court of King
Roger II of Sicily in the twelfth century (fig. 2.2), where
they founded a new school of Italo-Byzantine art. Byzan-
tine influence in thirteenth-century Europe is also in part
explained by the Sack of Constantinople in 1204 by the
Crusaders, who devastated the churches and the Great
Palace. The artistic works taken by the Crusaders —
painted icons, manuscripts, ivory carvings, enamels,

DUECENTO ART IN TUSCANY AND ROME • 41

2.2. ITALO-BYZANTINE. Christ Pantocrator, the Virgin Mary,
Angels, Saints, and Prophets. 1148. Apse mosaic. Cathedral,
Cefalu, Sicily.

fabrics with woven pictures, liturgical vessels — were scat-
tered throughout Europe, where their refined style and
impressive craftsmanship inspired local artists.

Byzantine art impressed through its sophisticated style —
featuring delicately posed, slender figures and vivid
colors — and its rich materials, including gold, ivory, and
enamel. Greek painters themselves, with few opportunities
in Constantinople, may have been drawn by the wealth of
Venice and the Tuscan cities. The earliest Italo-Byzantine
paintings demonstrate Italian artists’ reliance on Byzantine
models, with the anatomy divided into clearly demarcated
and delicately shaded areas and light on drapery rendered
by means of parallel lines of color or gold. But these works
also display a vigor and tension that distinguish them from
the Eastern examples that inspired them.

Painting in Pisa

So little is left of Tuscan painting before 1200 that it is
impossible to reconstruct the course of its development,
but the earliest surviving examples are in some ways closer
to the art of Romanesque Europe than to that of the
Byzantine East. Probably as a result of the conquest of
Constantinople, however, Byzantine influence during the
Duecento rapidly became dominant, as is evident in exam-
ples painted in Pisa, a powerful seaport since Roman
times. In 1133, under Pope Innocent II, Pisa was briefly the
seat of the papacy, and St. Bernard called it “a new Rome.”
The republic was in constant commercial competition and
naval warfare with the rival ports of Genoa to the north-
west and Amalfi, south of Naples.

One of the earliest surviving Italian panel pictures is the
anonymous and undated Cross No. 15, which was proba-
bly made in Pisa (fig. 2.3). This large work, perhaps
intended for a choir screen, shows Christ alive on the
cross. Scenes from the Passion and subsequent events are
placed on the areas to either side (known as the apron) and
at the ends of the bars of the cross. A cross with a Christ
who is represented alive is termed a Christus triumphans
(Christ triumphant). The purpose of these crucifixes seems
to have been to present an image of a powerful deity who

2.3. SCHOOL OF PISA. Cross No. 15. Late twelfth century. Panel,
9'3 " x 7'9 3 /4" (2.82 x 2.38 m). Pinacoteca, Pisa.

42 • THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

could overcome the torment of the Crucifixion. In the
backgrounds of the scenes, the arches and columns recall
the Romanesque architecture of Pisa’s Cathedral, Baptis-
tery, and Bell Tower — the famous Leaning Tower.

The palette of colors used by the artist — blue, rose,
white, tan, gold — is simple, and the style, considering the
potential drama of the subject, is restrained. Clear con-
tours outline major elements, and the linear treatment of
the drapery is related to that of contemporary Tuscan
Romanesque sculpture. Christ’s body is modeled with del-
icacy, as though carved in low relief. The wide-open eyes
stare impassively outward. Against the elaborate architec-
tural structures, the scenes from the Passion are repre-

sented as if they were incidents from a stylized ritual rather
than events that happened to real people. All in all, the
style recalls the manuscript painting of the Romanesque
period in Italy more than anything Byzantine.

Compared to this rather static painting, Cross No. 20 ,
also still in Pisa (fig. 2.4), conveys a range of emotional
values. Christ is shown dead, and it was perhaps the direct
appeal to the feelings of the spectator of this type, known
as the Christus patiens (suffering Christ), that explains
why it rapidly replaced the Christus triumph ans. Again we
know neither the date of the painting nor the identity of
the artist, but it is evident that he was strongly influenced
by Byzantine art. The pose of the body, with the hips

* 43

DUECENTO ART IN TUSCANY AND ROME

2.5. BYZANTINE. Lamentation.
c. 1164. Fresco. St. Pantaleimon,
Nerezi, near Skopje, Macedonia.

curving to our left, is common in Byzantine representa-
tions. By analogy with dated works, it is possible to
suggest a date of about 1230.

The change in content and style between the two Pisan
crosses can be partly explained by the spread of the devo-
tional practices of St. Francis of Assisi. Francis preached
and practiced a direct devotion to Christ and is said to
have received the miracle of the stigmata — wounds in the
hands, feet, and side that paralleled those of Christ at the
Crucifixion. Although it is difficult to confirm a direct con-
nection, it seems likely that the religious emotionalism of
Francis and his followers, which was widely disseminated
by the Franciscan Order, would have affected the interpre-
tation and representation of religious subjects in art.

The new emotional content is evident throughout Cross
No. 20: note Christ’s sad expression and the drama evoked
in the scenes from the Passion, in which architectural back-
grounds are subordinated to human content. Everywhere
the flow of line — in the hair and delicately delineated fea-
tures, in the slender fingers, and in the composition of the
scenes silhouetted against gold — achieves effects that are
both expressive and decorative. In the Lamentation panel,
long delicate lines move downward with increasing fre-
quency through the angels’ wings to Mary and the body of
her son, which rests on her lap. This elegant group was
derived from Byzantine sources. The subject of Mary
holding the dead Christ on her lap as she had held him as
a child is not found in the Bible, and it was apparently the
tenth-century theologian Simeon Metaphrastes who first
described this theme. As early as the twelfth century it was
being represented in Byzantine art, as can be seen in a

fresco of about 1164 at Nerezi (fig. 2.5); an icon with a
similar representation may have migrated to Pisa. Cross
No. 20 is one of the earliest Italian examples of the repre-
sentation of the tragic relationship between the dead Christ
and his mother, which became an important subject for
artists of the Renaissance. For the most famous example,
by Michelangelo, see figures 16.37-16.38. By the late years
of the Trecento, this theme was called the Viet a (Italian for
both “piety” and “pity”).

Painting in Lucca

Similar stages may be discerned in the painting of Lucca, a
rival republic about 15 miles from Pisa whose wealth was
derived from banking activities. An altarpiece of St.
Francis with Scenes from his Life (fig. 2.6) in Pescia, a
town between Lucca and Pistoia, is signed by Bonaventura
Berlinghieri, a member of a family of painters founded by
his father, Berlinghiero Berlinghieri, who had come to
Lucca from Milan. The work is dated 1235, only nine
years after the death of St. Francis. Although it is the ear-
liest known image of the saint, there is no evidence that
Tuscans in the Duecento attached any importance to por-
trait likeness. We can, however, deduce from the intensity
of the face, with its emaciated cheeks and piercing gaze, a
great deal about the meaning of St. Francis’s message to his
contemporaries. Bonaventura has shown us an ascetic
Francis of private meditations and ecstatic prayers.

The placement of scenes from the life of the saint to
either side of the central figure was probably inspired by
painted crosses. Two of the narrative scenes have land-

THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

2.6. BON AVENTURA BERLINGHIERI. St. Francis with Scenes from his Life . 1235. Panel,
5' x 3'9 3 /4" {1.52 x 1.16 m). it S. Francesco, Pescia.

scape backgrounds in which the Byzantine models for
painting hills are schematized and simplified. At the same
time, the color and shapes suggest a new interest in nature
as a vital force, and the narratives demonstrate a new
interest in human emotional reactions. There is, however,
no attempt to represent natural space, and the architec-
tural settings are adopted almost without change from
Byzantine formulas; they show no relation to the
Romanesque architecture of Lucca in Bonaventura’s day.

Painting in Florence

Until the Duecento, Pisa and Lucca were more populous
and powerful than Florence, and Florentine painting seems
to have had a slightly later start. But even its earliest exam-
ples show a greater power and plasticity than is found in
the works of the two rival schools.

Coppo di Marcovaldo (active 1260s-70s), the first
named Florentine painter, is generally accepted as the artist

DUECENTO ART IN TUSCANY AND ROME * 45

2.7. COPPO DI MARCOVALDO.
Crucifix . Second half of thirteenth
century. Panel, 9'7 3 /8" x 8 'V 4 " (2.93 x
2.47 m). Pinacoteca, San Gimignano.
Few of Coppo’s works can be securely
dated, but surviving evidence
indicates a relatively brief period of
artistic activity, from around the late
1250s to the early 1270s.

of the Crucifix (fig. 2.7) in San Gimignano, which was
then in Sienese territory. Coppo, who was deeply influ-
enced by the Byzantine style, shows us a Christ whose
sculpted body and face are convulsed and distorted with
suffering, and whose loincloth, hanging low at the waist, is

broken into deep-set angles projected with a violence
unusual in Italian art. The closed eyes are treated as two
fierce, hooked slashes, while the mouth seems to quiver
against the sweat-soaked locks of the beard and the hair
seems to writhe like snakes against the tormented body.

4 6 •

THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

Even the halo, carved into a raised disk broken by wedge-
like indentations, plays a part in heightening the expressive
power of the representation.

Coppo fought in the Battle of Montaperti in 1260 and
was taken prisoner by the Sienese after the Florentine
defeat; it has been suggested that the emotional content of
his Crucifix reflects his wartime experiences. Compared
with the Lamentation in Cross No . 20, Coppo’s scene of
the same subject suggests the immediacy of a family
tragedy. Christ lies rigid on the ground, his head held by
his mother; the other figures use gesture and glance to
suggest strong emotion, and the landscape, with its dra-
matic verticals, adds further tension.

The subject of Coppo’s Madonna and Child (fig. 2.8)
does not allow the emotive outbursts sensed in the Cruci-

2.8. COPPO DI MARCOVALDO. Madonna and Child, c. 1265.
Panel, 7'9 3 /4" x 4 ' 5 1 / 8 " (2.38 x 1.35 m). S. Martino dei Servi, Orvieto.

fix , but the artist’s intensity of feeling is evident in the form
and design. Coppo follows traditional Byzantine represen-
tations in showing the Virgin seated on a throne, crowned
as Queen of Heaven and holding her son, his hand raised
in blessing, upon her knee. Her expression is a reference to
the suffering and death of Christ; Coppo’s Madonna is
mournful because she senses the tragic events to come.

Although technical examination has revealed that the
faces of the Madonna and Child were overpainted at a
later date, they still retain much of Coppo’s style in the
emphasis on linear accents in the nose, lips, and eyes, divi-
sions that are strengthened by the harsh modeling. Every
shape is treated as an abstracted form, severe and clear-cut.
Here Coppo’s wedge-shaped depressions in the halo are
smaller and more numerous than those in the Crucifix , cre-
ating a glitter of gold around the face. The energetic Christ
Child, remarkably unchildlike in appearance and holding a
scroll in his left hand, is represented as savior and teacher.
Coppo’s dramatic style is also evident in the drapery,
which is cut up in folds that are outlined by gold striations.
These sharp, intense, and irregular sunburst shapes, which
have little to do with the behavior of cloth, enliven the
image and add tension to the representation.

The cycle of mosaics in the vault of the Baptistery of Flo-
rence (see fig. 2.33) is the most important pictorial under-
taking of the Duecento in Florence. The Last Judgment on
the west face (fig. 2.9) is attributed to Coppo. Such a
prominent commission allowed him to display the vigor of
his imagination and the power of his forms on an enor-
mous scale. The central figure, more than 25 feet (7 m)
high, is clear in design, with the masses broken into seg-
ments that are richly modeled in color. Foliate ornament
adorns the border of the mandorla that surrounds him.
Fixing the spectator with his gaze, Christ beckons with his
right arm toward the blessed, while with his left he casts
the damned into eternal fire. The athletic figures leaping
from their tombs on the right are attributed to Coppo, as
is the terrifying hell scene, in which a few punishments and
demons suffice for the whole. Around Satan, the writhing
serpents and monstrous toads that devour the damned are
rendered with the zigzag shapes characteristic of Coppo’s
style. Coppo’s mosaic of Christ was the most awe-inspiring
representation of divinity in Italian art until Michelangelo.
Although his name was not mentioned in later sources,
Coppo’s vision inspired, directly or indirectly, generations
of Florentine artists.

The painter Cenni di Pepi (active c. 1272-1302) is better
known by the nickname Cimabue, which can be translated
as “ox head” or “dehorner of oxen.” The latter interpre-
tation might refer to Cimabue’s personality, which an early
source describes as proud and arrogant. Whatever the
meaning of this particular moniker, it is interesting at this

DUECENTO ART IN TUSCANY AND ROME * 47

' n

.Slj

ligi

"■ S’ -

3* m

early moment in our survey of Italian art to note that many
later artists are also best known by nicknames, including
Cavallini, Masaccio, and Donatello. In most introductions
to the history of art, Cimabue appears as the earliest of
Florentine — and therefore of Italian — painters . This is
where Vasari, who considered everything between the col-
lapse of the Roman Empire and Cimabue’s time to be
clumsy, positioned him in his history of Italian art. In
reality, Cimabue belongs not at the beginning of a devel-
opment but at its end: he is the last Italo-Byzantine painter.
Cimabue summed up a tradition that had been pervasive
for nearly a century in Tuscany, and — splendid though his
creations are — he began nothing essentially new.

The large, unsigned Enthroned Madonna and Child
with Angels and Prophets (fig. 2.10), painted for Santa
Trinita in Florence, has long been attributed to Cimabue.
It is the most ambitious panel painting attempted by any
Italian artist up until that time. When seen by candlelight
inside the dark and lofty church, it must have made an
overwhelming impression. The enthroned Madonna,
shown without a crown, presents her child to the viewer.
Angels seem to be holding up the throne, while in the
arches below, Old Testament prophets provide a textual
foundation by displaying scrolls with prophecies of the
Virgin Birth. The throne’s structure and its relationship to
the angels is not clear. Cimabue does not even seem to have
made up his mind whether the curves beneath the throne
are arches in elevation, niches in depth, or both.

The Christ Child holds a scroll and looks directly at the
observer. The gold striations of the drapery, derived from
Byzantine tradition, have proliferated; hundreds of lines
create a glittering network of shapes, as if the artist were
trying to overwhelm the faithful with the regal majesty of
his figure — an effect that would have been even more
remarkable when the painting was still in situ in Santa
Trinita. The blue pigment of the Virgin’s mantle has dark-
ened, but it was originally a brilliant blue, the customary
color, as is the rose tone of her tunic. The angels’ colorful
wings and the gold striations would have emphasized the
broad areas of vivid blue.

Cimabue’s drawing style is restrained, in contrast to the
power suggested by Coppo’s broad lines. The eye structure
is characteristic of his style, with the lower lid almost hor-
izontal, the upper lid shaped like an upside-down V, and
the sidelong glance contrasting with the downward tilt of
the head. Cimabue had a keen sense of modeling, and he

2.10. CIMABUE. Enthroned Madonna and Child with Angels and
Prophets , c. 1280. Panel, 117" x 7'4 H (3.53 x 2.24 m). Uffizi Gallery,
Florence. Commissioned for the high altar of Sta. Trinita, Florence.
The Uffizi Gallery is found in a structure designed by Vasari as an
office building (uffizi means “offices” in Italian) for Cosimo I de’
Medici (see fig. 20.41). The core of the collection consists of works
originally commissioned or owned by the Medici family, including
many works of ancient sculpture, but the museum also has works
such as this from Florentine churches. The Uffizi Gallery is a good
place to achieve an overview of Florentine Renaissance painting,
but the fresco paintings that represent some of the most impressive
works created by Florentine artists during the Renaissance are found
on the walls where they were originally painted in Florence, Padua,
and Rome.

2.9. Mosaics of the Last Judgment , Ranks of Angels, and Scenes from the Old Testament and the Lives of Christ and St . John the Baptist, the
central figure of Christ in the Last Judgment has been attributed to Coppo di Marcovaldo. Second half of thirteenth century. Baptistery, Florence.
The other registers of the Baptistery vault feature scenes from the Old Testament and the lives of Christ and John the Baptist. These same themes
were later represented on the bronze doors added to the Baptistery in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (see figs. 3.33, 7.4, 10.1).

DUECENTO ART IN TUSCANY AND ROME * 49

delicately shaded the drapery except for the gold-striated
garments of Christ and the Virgin. None of the forms
seems weighty, however, and no head is really three-
dimensional. Cimabue wished to show everything that he
knew to exist, depicting both ears even in a three-quarters
view of the face, as though no solid mass of the head
should intervene to hide one. The idea that the image of an
object was received by the human eye as a reflection of
light had yet to find its way into painting. At the same
time, however, Cimabue differentiated psychological types
carefully, as in the distinction between the youthful
angels and the Old Testament prophets below. He
delighted in rendering complicated shapes, long, slender
fingers, and, for the throne, ornament derived from classi-
cal sources. Even on the gold background, he did not stop
inventing: the background and the haloes are enriched
with shifting patterns of incised lines and a series of
punched dots.

Cimabue’s adherence to the Byzantine style is best
demonstrated in a large Crucifix , perhaps originally
intended for the rood beam or choir screen of Santa Croce
in Florence (figs. 2.11-2.12). Cimabue based his composi-
tion on the Byzantine-inspired Christus patiens (see figs.
2.4, 2.7), but his version is both enormous in size and sim-
plified in subject and composition. The patterned apron
and text at the top do not distract us from the body of
Christ, while the half-length figures of the Virgin and John
the Evangelist in the side terminals, their heads inclined
inward, direct our attention back to the suffering Christ.
The heads and hands of the two subsidiary figures are styl-
ized and segmented in the Byzantine manner, as is the huge
body of Christ, which sways even more dramatically than
did the figure in the Crucifix by Coppo (see fig. 2.7). Yet
through subtle changes in the basic Byzantine pattern,
Cimabue created an image of powerful expressiveness. The
transparent loincloth allows us to experience the full sweep

2.11. CIMABUE. Crucifix (before damage
sustained in a 1966 flood). 1280s. Panel, 14'3' 1
12’7" (4.35 x 3.84 m). Museo di Sta. Croce,
Florence. This cross is not signed, but it was
attributed to Cimabue by Vasari and other
early authors.

5 ° *

THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

2.12. CIMABUE. Crucifix (fig. 2.11, after
restoration). A flood on November 4, 1966
severely damaged this painting. There were fifty-
six earlier documented floods, including major
ones in 1177, 1333, and 1557, but the one in
1966 seems to have been the worst in Florence’s
history. At the time, Cimabue’s Crucifix was
displayed in the ex-refectory of Sta. Croce (see
fig. 3.31), where the surging waters of the flood
were approximately 20 feet high. The painting
was damaged when folding wooden chairs
stored in the refectory, which was often used for
meetings, were lifted by the surging water and
banged against its surface. The areas that were
lost have been left unrestored. Many important
Italian archives were lost with the flooding of the
National Library, adjacent to Sta. Croce.

of the swaying body, and Cimabue increased the sense of
tension by stretching the arms outward rather than letting
them sag as they had in earlier Byzantine and Italian exam-
ples. Although the sense of Christ’s suffering has increased,
the figure still follows the elegant, two-dimensional Byzan-
tine pattern. The abstraction with which Cimabue
approached his subject is evident in his treatment of the
blood that flows from the wounds in Christ’s hands; rather
than sticking to his flesh naturalistically, it falls straight
downward and pools only when it encounters the decora-
tive gold border.

Cimabue was a monumental artist not just in tempera,
but in fresco and mosaic as well; he probably continued
the Baptistery mosaics started by Coppo and others. His
abilities as a fresco painter are suggested by his cycle of
frescoes at the church of San Francesco at Assisi.

St. Francis, who was called the Poverello (little poor man)
of Assisi and who married “Lady Poverty” by renouncing

all possessions, is enshrined in a double church erected
over his tomb. Probably built with the collaboration of
French and German architects, the Upper Church is almost
completely lined with frescoes, and its windows are filled
with stained glass (see fig. 2.15). These cycles make this the
most nearly complete large-scale cycle of religious imagery
in Italy before the Sistine Chapel (see figs. 14.17, 17.23).
Cimabue’s poorly preserved Crucifixion (fig. 2.13) is diffi-
cult to decipher because the whites, painted with white
lead, have oxidized and turned black with time. Later
painters learned from this transformation, and Cennini
warned painters not to use white lead on walls.

Cimabue here conceived the Crucifixion as a universal
catastrophe. Christ writhes on the cross, his head bent in
pain — perhaps already in death, although this is impossible
to determine in the fresco’s present state. A great wind
seems to have broken loose, perhaps in reference to the
sudden darkness that accompanied the Crucifixion. (When

DUECENTO ART IN TUSCANY AND ROME * 5 I

2 .13, CIMABUE. Fresco cycle.
After 1279, Approx. 17x24'
(5.18 x 7.32 m). Upper Church
of S. Francesco. Assisi. Perhaps
commissioned by Pope Nicholas
III OrsinL In the bottom register
is the Crucifixion. The ruined
lunette fresco above may have
represented Christ in G /on 1 . The
angels seen behind the arcade are
in a better condition than the
larger frescoes and give a better
sense of Cimabue's color palette.
The ruined scene to the right of
the Crucifixion is The Vision of
the Throne and the Book of
Seven Seals* an unusual scene
based on the New Testament
Book of Revelations (4:2-4 ).

an eclipse of the sun takes place, a strong and unexpected
wind sweeps across the landscape.) Angels hover in rhe air,
their drapery blown by the fierce wind, and hands reach
upward from rhe crowd below toward the crucified Christ.
From his side blood and water — allusions to the sacra-
ments of the Eucharist and baptism — pour into a cup held
by a flying angel. To our left are Mary, the other holy

women, and the apostles; on the opposite side are the
Romans, chief priests, and elders, including the dramati-
cally posed figure of the soldier who recognized Christ as
the son of God. Even from this ruined fresco we can under-
stand that Cimabue was interested in hold theatrical effects
and in creating a narrative scene that could project the
intensity of a moment of revelation*

J 2 * THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

Painting in Rome

While Cimabue ruled the Florentine scene, a remarkable
school of painters was working in Rome, where the prac-
tice of mural decoration in fresco and mosaic had contin-
ued unbroken since at least the Early Christian period.
Fresco painting probably links back to the ancient Romans
and perhaps even the Etruscans. The late thirteenth
century saw a brief increase in pictorial activity in Rome
that continued until the seat of the papacy moved from
Rome to Avignon in southern France in the early four-
teenth century. The arrival of Greek masters from Con-
stantinople after 1204 may have given Roman artists a
certain impetus; it is documented that in 1218 Pope
Honorius III imported mosaicists — probably either Greek
or Greek-trained — from Venice.

The climax of Duecento monumental art in Rome is the
apse mosaic of Santa Maria Maggiore (fig. 2.14), signed by

Jacopo Torrid and executed during the pontificate of
Nicholas IV (1285-1294). It shows how a Roman artist of
the period responded to both the city’s Early Christian her-
itage and the imported style from Byzantium. In the center,
Christ and the Virgin, robed in gold with blue shadows,
are seated on a cushion with their feet on footstools. The
blue of their robes is repeated throughout the composition,
starting with the deep blue background of their mandorla,
which is studded with silver stars. The gold ground is
crowded with curling acanthus scrolls populated by ducks,
doves, parrots, pheasants, cranes, and peacocks. The
colors within the shell-niche at the crown of the apse move
through a startling succession: gold, sky blue, rose, and
green. The mosaic combines the subject of the Coronation
of the Virgin with the linear style of Byzantine mosaic art,
while the scrolls and shell-niche are based on late Roman
examples, probably of the mid-fifth century. Torriti’s work
embodies fragments of a fifth-century mosaic, including a

2.14. JACOPO TORRITI. Coronation of the Virgin, c. 1294. Apse mosaic. Sta. Maria Maggiore, Rome. The scenes between the windows
below are the Nativity , the Dormition of the Virgin , and the Adoration of the Magi.

DUECENTO ART IN TUSCANY AND ROME * 53

river god and a sailing ship just visible at the bottom left.
More important than these diverse origins (including the
pre-Christian river god) is the ease with which they are
harmonized. The drapery motifs, for example, are at once
Byzantine in their linearity, Gothic in their amplitude, and
classical in their unity. A new style was emerging in Rome,
in which the three currents most prevalent in the formation
of Italian art were approaching fusion. Whether there is
any reflection here of the developments taking place in the
work of the youthful Giotto (see fig. 3.2) or at Assisi
remains difficult to determine.

At Assisi, several Roman painters, including Torrid,
were active in the nave of the Upper Church of San
Francesco (fig. 2.15), probably after Cimabue had finished
his work in the transept and choir. One of these, called the
Isaac Master, painted two scenes from the story of Isaac
and Jacob (fig. 2.16) in the upper level of frescoes. In the
Isaac and Esau scene, a flat ceiling with a diamond pattern
in dark and light to indicate coffering, the elaborate hang-
ings on the bed, and a little colonnade at its base are motifs
often found in Roman thirteenth-century art (see fig. 2.18),
while the drapery curves — at once classical, Byzantine, and
Gothic — recall those of Torrid.

The narrative is tense. In the adjoining fresco, Jacob,
abetted by Rebecca, has received the blessing of the blind
Isaac by impersonating his brother Esau (Genesis
27:5-27). Here Esau, Isaac’s favorite son, returns expect-
ing the blessing. Isaac, realizing he has been tricked, says
to Esau, “Who art thou?” Isaac’s startled pose expresses
the Bible’s report that he “trembled very exceedingly”
(Genesis 27:32-33), while the deceiver Jacob slinks away
to the right. Stiff as the scene may be in poses and gestures,
and imperfectly realized in the weightlessness of the bodies
under their drapery, this unidentified painter was able to
express psychological interaction and to capture the dra-
matic significance of a narrative with a subtlety not seen in
earlier surviving works. Also new here is the modeling of
the faces and hands, which reveals the artist’s close obser-
vation of light. A date in the 1280s or early 1290s seems
likely, but the identity of this artist remains unknown.

It was Pietro Cavallini (Pietro de’ Cerroni, nicknamed
Cavallino, “little horse”) who transfigured Roman paint-
ing by his discovery of how light realized form. Born in
about 1240, he was active until about 1330. We know
little about Cavallini, but a notation by his son tells us that
he lived to a hundred and never covered his head, even in

2.15. View of the frescoes on the side wall of the Upper Church of S. Francesco, Assisi, with scenes from the life of St. Francis on the bottom tier
(see fig. 3.26). Above are scenes from the Old Testament, including, in the second bay from the right, scenes from the story of Isaac and Esau
attributed to the Isaac Master (see fig. 2.16).

54 * THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

2.16. ISAAC MASTER. Isaac Discovers that He Has Been Tricked
by Jacob. 1280s or early 1290s. Fresco, 10 x 10' (3x3 m). Upper
Church of S. Francesco, Assisi.

the worst days of winter. The Florentine sculptor Lorenzo
Ghiberti, who knew frescoes and mosaics by Cavallini that
are still preserved and others that have perished, including
cycles in Old St. Peter’s and elsewhere, called him a “most
noble master” and praised his work for its “great relief,”
meaning three-dimensionality.

Cavallini’s new style seems to have been the result of the
careful study he made of Early Christian frescoes after he
was commissioned to restore the partially ruined frescoes
of Old and New Testament scenes that decorated the nave
of Rome’s St. Paul’s Outside the Walls. He probably also
examined the surviving Early Christian mosaics that sur-
vived in the city. Although his work at St. Paul’s was
destroyed in a fire in 1823, watercolor copies of some of
the scenes are preserved; here we reproduce Christ Preach-
ing in Jerusalem , with a Donor (fig. 2.17). It is not clear
whether this fresco was based on remains of an Early
Christian work or whether it was a new invention by Cav-
allini designed to fit stylistically with the early frescoes that
had survived in reasonably good condition. In any case,
Cavallini expressed the late Roman naturalism that had
survived into the Early Christian period with well-lit,
rounded, three-dimensional figures, soft drapery folds,

2.17. Copy after PIETRO CAVALLINI. Christ Preaching in Jerusalem , with a Donor , watercolor copy of lost fresco from
St. Paul’s Outside the Walls, Rome. The watercolor preserves the composition of Cavallini’s lost fresco, which was executed in
the late 1270s. Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Ms. Barb. Lat 4406, f. 119.

DUECENTO ART IN TUSCANY AND ROME » 55

TUnffl-

H-mxm geftsms MMM

w; .

2.18. PIETRO C AVAL LINI. Birth of
the Virgin . Late 1290s. Mosaic, figures
approximately life-sized. Sta. Maria in
Trastevere, Rome. Commissioned by Bertoldo
Stefaneschi. For later examples of this same
subject, see figs. 9.11, 18.17.

deep architectural settings, clear gestures, and well-ordered
compositions of figures set in the foreground. The fresco
preserved in the watercolor had these qualities, whether it
was largely Early Christian or largely (or completely) by
Cavallini. The centralized composition with the apostles
gathered around Christ bears a startling resemblance to
one of the first great works of Renaissance painting,
Masaccio’s Tribute Money (see fig. 8.9), although there is
probably no connection between the two.

The most important achievements by Cavallini still
visible in Rome are the mosaics in the apse of Santa Maria

in Trastevere and the fragmentary frescoes in Santa
Cecilia in Trastevere, both of which Ghiberti mentions but
neither of which can be securely dated beyond the proba-
bility that they were done in the 1290s. The classical sty-
listic idioms that Cavallini learned at St. Paul’s are evident
in the Birth of the Virgin (fig. 2.18) from the series of the
life of the Virgin in Santa Maria in Trastevere. The back-
ground appears like a stage set based on ancient Roman
domestic architecture and shrines, while its inlaid orna-
ment derives from Roman medieval sources. The women
by the mother’s couch and the two midwives about to

2.19. PIETRO CAVALLINI. Last Judgment (detail of damaged fresco). 1290s. Sta. Cecilia in Trastevere, Rome.

5 6 * THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

bathe the newborn Mary (a theme borrowed from repre-
sentations of the birth of Christ; see fig. 2.20) carry their
bread, wine, and water with the solemnity of a ritual. The
figures are imbued with classical grace and simplicity,
while the drapery masses recall Greek and Roman sculp-
ture in the breadth of their forms and the ease with which
the folds fall, in sharp contrast to the tense complexity of
the drapery of Torrid or the Isaac Master. Most impor-
tantly, the suggestion of three-dimensionality in heads and
bodies seems to depend largely on the play of light.

This is a fundamental revolution in artistic vision, and it
is clear that it came about through an intimate acquain-
tance with Early Christian models, both frescoes and
mosaics. An even sharper transformation is visible in Cav-
allini’s fragmentary fresco of the Last Judgment in Santa
Cecilia in Trastevere (fig. 2.19), which is all that remains
of a cycle that once covered the walls of the church. In the
enthroned Christ and apostles, whose rich coloristic har-
monies are dominated by soft orange and green, and in the
angels with feathers in graduated colors, there is a new
sense of mass and texture revealed through light. Cav-
allini’s illumination, while still not originating from a
single source — that development would not occur for more
than a century — plays richly on the drapery and faces of
the seated apostles. Forms seem to have roundness through
the action of light. A columnar roundness makes the
anatomical structure of the neck palpable in a manner not
found in art since ancient times. Although the locks of hair
are still somewhat patterned, the beards are naturalistic in
texture and the mantles have a soft and silky sheen, no
doubt due in part to Cavallini’s adoption of the Roman use
of marble dust in his intonaco.

As we shall see in Chapter 3, the innovations of Cav-
allini provided a strong incentive, perhaps even inspira-
tion, for the Florentine master Giotto, who must have
studied Cavallini’s work in Rome.

Sculpture

Sometime during the 1250s, the sculptor Nicola d’Apulia
arrived in Pisa from the south; he is known today as Nicola
Pisano (active 1258-1278). He was the first of many sculp-
tural innovators, and his unexpected classicism has some-
times been attributed to a connection with the classicizing
culture of the court of Emperor Frederick II, who ruled
in Apulia. But Pisa, with its Roman history and preten-
sions, also had a strong classical tradition, and its ancient
monuments had been copied by Pisan artists earlier in
the century.

Nicola’s first known work, a marble pulpit for the Bap-
tistery of the Cathedral of Pisa (see fig. 2.1), was signed
with an inscription in which the artist emphasized his skill,
in keeping with the self-laudatory inscriptions common in
medieval Tuscany. Busketus, the architect of the Cathedral
of Pisa, had even compared himself to Ulysses and
Daedalus. The presence of a pulpit in a baptistery can be
understood through the latter’s special importance in the
Italian city-states: it was the only place to celebrate
baptism, the sacrament that also brought a child into citi-
zenship in the commune. The baptistery, usually a separate
building, thus had civic as well as religious importance.
Sermons by Archbishop Federigo Visconti, who commis-
sioned Nicola’s pulpit, contain vivid symbolism of the
water used in baptism as a vehicle for divine grace.
Nicola’s hexagonal pulpit is a magnificent construction of
white marble from the quarries at nearby Carrara (see fig.
1.18), with columns and colonnettes of polished granite
and variegated red marble.

Nicola’s study of the ancient Roman Corinthian capitals
found in abundance in Pisa gives his own versions firmness
and precision, but their acanthus leaves resemble the more
naturalistic ornament on French Gothic cathedrals. While
Nicola’s arches are rounded rather than pointed in the

DUECENTO ART IN TUSCANY AND ROME * 57

Gothic manner, they are enriched with the scalloped deco-
ration known as cusping developed in French cathedral
architecture. There are five high-relief narrative panels on
the pulpit, with further reliefs of Old Testament prophets
on the triangular spandrels and figures in high relief stand-
ing over the capitals. The pupils of the eyes were inset with
stone or painted, while the backgrounds of the scenes orig-
inally featured patterned decoration not unlike that found
in French Gothic manuscript paintings.

Perhaps Nicola’s patron required him to compress sepa-
rate incidents into the same frame: the initial panel
includes the Annunciation , Nativity , and Annunciation to
the Shepherds (fig. 2.20). During the Annunciation the
Angel Gabriel announces to the Virgin Mary that she will
be the mother of the son of God. According to theologians,
when Gabriel’s words struck her ear, the human body of
Christ was conceived in Mary’s womb. The Annunciation
is celebrated on March 25 and, until the Gregorian calen-
dar was adopted in the late sixteenth century, the new year
in Rome and Tuscany began on this date.

In the Nativity , Mary reclines upon a mattress, while
Joseph, at the lower left, is a silent spectator. Two shep-
herds and their dog (now all headless) can be seen in the
upper right. These peripheral figures act as a kind of frame
for the enormous figure of the reclining Virgin. The style
suggests that Nicola drew his figures on the marble slab
and then carved inwards to free heads, arms, and trees
from the background or from each other. No attempt was
made to suggest distant space, and the heads all lie on the
surface plane, no matter how much the figures may
overlap. This also means that the forms of the relief are

related to the surrounding frame, a feature difficult to
observe in photographs but effective when facing the
actual pulpit.

The dense packing of the figures and the rendering of
their heads can be traced to classical models, especially to
figures on Roman sarcophagi, of which a number had
remained in Pisa since antiquity or been brought there
more recently. Nicola’s Virgin has been characterized as a
Roman Juno; the straight nose, full lips, broad cheeks, low
forehead, and wavy hair all come directly from classical
art. Despite these specific references to antiquity and the
figures’ classical weight and dignity, the whole is strangely
unclassical. The drapery breaks into sharp angles, creating
an allover network reminiscent of the Italo-Byzantine
forms in contemporary painting. The general composi-
tional principles in the Baptistery pulpit reliefs are not far
from those of Coppo di Marcovaldo and Cimabue. Classi-
cal and Gothic details seem intrusions at this stage.

In the Adoration of the Magi (fig. 2.21), the seated Virgin
is imitated, almost line for line, from the seated Phaedra on
a Roman sarcophagus representing the legend of HippoT
ytus (fig. 2.22), a borrowing that was first mentioned by
Vasari in the sixteenth century. The three kings look like
Roman bearded figures, but again the drapery shows the
staccato breaks of the Italo-Byzantine style. The nude male
figure standing over one of the capitals, who is now iden-
tified as Daniel (fig. 2.23), was imitated from a figure on a
Roman Hercules sarcophagus; his unusually large head is
probably in compensation for the low viewpoint of the
spectator. This classically inspired Daniel is the first nude
in Italian art who might be described as heroic.

2.20. NICOLA PISANO. Annunciation, Nativity, and Annuncia-
tion to the Shepherds. 1260. Marble, 33 V 2 x 44 V 2 " (85 x 113 cm).
m Panel on the Pisa Baptistery pulpit (see fig. 2.1).

2.21. NICOLA PISANO. Adoration of the Magi. 1260. Marble,
33V2 x 44 V 2 " (85 x 113 cm), it Panel on the Pisa Baptistery pulpit
(see fig. 2.1).

58 • THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

2.22. Ancient Roman sarcophagus with the Story of Phaedra and Hippolytus . 2nd century CF. Marble, length 6' (2.2 m). In Nicola’s day this
Sif/xophagus was on the facade of Pisa Cathedral; today it is in the nearby cemetery known as the Camposanto.

2.23. NICOLA PISANO. Daniel. 1260. Marble, height 22
(56 cm), m Figure on the Pisa Baptistery pulpit (see fig. 2.1).

Nicola’s interest in the classical may be the result of
several factors. Pisans during this period thought of their
city as a new Rome, and classical sarcophagi were reused
for burials throughout the city. In addition, Nicola’s use of
the classical gives his scenes a majesty and dignity not
seen in earlier Italian reliefs; his motivation in looking to
the antique may have been based on a desire to find
sculptural models that offered a mood and character he
deemed appropriate for the profundity of his Christian
subject matter.

Five years after he completed the Pisa pulpit, Nicola was
called to Siena, where he executed an even more ambitious
pulpit. Fie worked on this immense undertaking from
1265 to 1268 with the assistance of a group of pupils that
included his son Giovanni and three other sculptors who
would later become well known, including Arnolfo di
Cambio (see figs. 2.36, 2.38, 2.40).

DUECENTO ART IN TUSCANY AND ROME * 59

The Madonna and Child on the Siena pulpit (fig. 2.24)
demonstrates how Nicola's style became more Gothic in
the decade after the: completion of the Pisa Baptistery
pulpit. When compared with a French Gothic figure of
Christ (fig. 2.25), we see the similarity in how drapery is
pulled up over the arm so that it can cascade down in rich,
curvilinear Gothic folds. Note too the manner in which the
Virgin's breasts are visible through the drapery, a device
seen in the French Gothic statues of Reims Cathedral.
Whether Nicola knew of these innovations through a visit
to France or through an examination of small works such
as ivory carvings remains unknown.

Nicola’s son Giovanni inherited the shop after his
father’s death, sometime between 1278 and 1287. Gio-
vanni Pisano (c. 1250-c. 1314) designed the lower half of
the facade of the Cathedral in Siena. The building itself
had been begun in the early thirteenth century and the first

2.24. NICOLA PISANO. Madonna and Child . 1260. Marble,
height 33 V 2 " (85 cm). It figure on the Siena Cathedral pulpit.

2.25. An example of French Gothic. Standing figure of Christ.
c. 1220. Limestone, originally polychromed, height 8'6" (2.59 m).
Cathedral of Notre Dame, Amiens, France. This figure is popularly
known as the “handsome” or “beautiful God” (Beau Dieu).

phase of the construction was completed, with the excep-
tion of the facade, by the early 1 270s. The black-and-white
striping of the exterior and interior emphasizes the com-
munal content of this monument in its reference to the coat
of arms of the Sienese commune (figs. 2.26-2.27). The facade

60 * THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

2.26. Interior of Siena Cathedral. This cathedral replaced two earlier
ones, the first dating from the ninth or the tenth century and a second
that was consecrated in 1179. The interior seen here was built during
the first half of the thirteenth century and completed in the early
1270s. The cathedral is built with two colors of marble: white from
Carrara and dark green from Prato. It was lengthened by the addition
of two bays in the choir area in the fourteenth century; the current
length is 239'8 ,, (89.4 m).

Below: 2.27. Siena Cathedral. The lower half of the facade, including
statuary, is by the sculptor Giovanni Pisano and dates to 1284-99.
Marble sculpture (originally) with other, colored stones and mosaic
panels (largely restored). Most of the sculptures are copies; originals
are now in the Museo delPOpera del Duomo, Siena (see fig. 2.28).
The bell tower seen here dates from before 1215 and is the only
surviving part of an earlier cathedral dedicated in 1179. The arches
seen to the right were part of a Trecento expansion of the cathedral
that was never completed; they would have formed the side aisle of
a new nave.

DUECENTO ART IN TUSCANY AND ROME • 6 I

Giovanni designed turns decisively toward the Gothic in its
decorative motifs and use of large-scale figural sculpture.

In contrast to Nicola, Giovanni’s work is closer to the
more expressionistic German Gothic style than to the
courtly beauty of the Gothic as it had developed in France
(see fig. 2.25). The statues of prophets and saints on the
Siena facade twist and turn as if to declare their independ-
ence from the confines of their architectural setting, even
though it was Giovanni himself who laid out the arches,
gables, and pinnacles that surround them. This potent
movement is evident in Giovanni’s Mary, Sister of Moses
(fig. 2.28). The tension of her pose — especially the neck
projecting sharply from the torso and then twisted to one
side — can be explained in part by a sensitivity to the spec-
tator’s viewpoint. Giovanni brought the neck outward so

2.28. GIOVANNI PISANO. Mary, Sister of Moses.
1284-99. Marble, height 6'2 3 /8" (1.89 m). Removed from
original location on the facade of the Duomo, Siena (fig.
2.27). Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena.

that when the figure was seen from below, the face would
not be hidden by the breasts and knees. Mary’s dramatic
pose may also be related to her original position on the
side of the facade, around the corner from the rest of the
figures; she leans forward as if to commune with her fellow

2.29. GIOVANNI PISANO. Pistoia pulpit. 1298-1301. White
Carrara marble, variegated red marble, originally with inlaid and
painted highlights, patterned glass, height 12'9" (3.89 m).
m Sant’ Andrea, Pistoia. The inscription on the pulpit reads: “In
praise of the triune God I link the beginning with the end of this task
in thirteen hundred and one. The originator and donor of the work
is the canon Arnoldus, may he be ever blessed. Andrea, [son?] of
Vitello, and Tino, son of Vitale, well known under such a name, are
the best of treasurers. Giovanni carved it, who performed no empty
work. The son of Nicola and blessed with higher skill, Pisa gave him
birth, endowed with mastery greater than any seen before.”

6 2 * THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

prophets and sibyls on the front. Giovanni reduced the
figure’s features to their essentials because fine detail
would be lost from below and only the most powerful
masses and movements would register on the eye. His
boldness is now exaggerated because of the manner in
which the porous stone he used has weathered over
the centuries.

The self-laudatory inscription his father placed on the
Pisa Baptistery pulpit is exceeded by the long inscription
that Giovanni carved on the pulpit he created between
1298 and 1301 for Sant’ Andrea in Pistoia (fig. 2.29). Here
the cusped arches are sharply pointed and the leaves of the
capitals more richly three-dimensional, while the classical
elements so important in Nicola’s art are submerged by a
rising tide of emotionalism. The projections are stronger,
the undercutting of heads, arms, and other projecting ele-
ments deeper.

A scene especially suited to Giovanni’s new style is the
Massacre of the Innocents , showing the children under the
age of two who were slain at the command of King Herod
to destroy the infant he feared would usurp his power (fig.
2.30). As Herod gives the order, the stage is filled with
wailing mothers, screaming children, and violent, sword-
wielding soldiers; below, mothers cradle dead babies. Even
the prophets in the spandrels and sibyls above the capitals
share in the agitation. The sibyls, Greek and Roman
prophetesses who were believed to have foretold the
coming of Christ, can be seen again and again in Italian
art, culminating in their representation by Michelangelo
on the Sistine Ceiling (see fig. 17.36). One figure (fig. 2.31)

2.31. GIOVANNI PISANO. Sibyl. 1298-1301. Marble, height
24 3 /8" (62 cm). it Figure on the Pistoia pulpit (fig. 2.29).

2.30. GIOVANNI PISANO. Massacre
of the Innocents. 1298-1301. Marble,

33 x 40V8" (83 x 102 cm), it Panel on the
Pistoia pulpit (fig. 2.29).

• 6 3

DUECENTO ART IN TUSCANY AND ROME

communicates drama in the turn of her head, the twisted
movement of the figure, and the flow and flicker of the
drapery. Giovanni’s most unexpected figure supports the
base of a column on the nape of his neck; his struggle is
evident in his pose and the tortured expression on his face.

Reflecting the melange of styles that coexisted in Due-
cento Tuscany, the Pistoia pulpit is roughly contemporary
with the last manifestations of the Italo-Byzantine style in
painting. At this time, Italian Gothic sculpture and Italo-
Byzantine painting were both characterized by an empha-
sis on dramatic emotion in narrative scenes — an interest
that reached its most subtle manifestation in the frescoes of
Giotto, to be studied in the next chapter. The grand sim-
plicity of Giovanni Pisano’s Madonna and Child at the
Arena Chapel in Padua (fig. 2.32), her clear-cut profile, so
different from the Romanizing profiles by Nicola, the
broad sweep of the drapery masses enhancing the volume
of the figure beneath, the geniality and human directness
of the expressions — all suggest a close familiarity with the
art of Giotto, the master whose frescoes fill the walls of the
same chapel (see fig. 3.3).

Architecture

The transition from Romanesque to Gothic and the role of
the classicizing elements so readily available in Italy can
also be traced in architecture. One of the most remarkable
early Romanesque buildings in Tuscany is the Florentine
Baptistery (fig. 2.33; see fig. 2.39). By the fifteenth century
the Florentines were convinced that this structure must
have originally been constructed during the ancient Roman
period as a temple to Mars, but current opinion dates it to
the eleventh century. The pedimented windows of the
upper story show the influence of the antique, as do the
ribbed and Corinthian-style pilasters. The round arches
that decorate the upper story are reminiscent of Roman
architecture, but in antiquity such arcades were never
supported on columns, as they are here. One of the first
truly Renaissance structures, Brunelleschi’s facade of the
Ospedale degli Innocenti (see fig. 6.13), uses just such an
arcade; his appropriation of this motif from the Baptistery
may have been inspired by the Florentine belief that this
venerable and impressive civic and religious structure had
been constructed in the ancient Roman period.

By the thirteenth century, most new buildings in Flo-
rence were being constructed in an Italian version of the
Gothic. Two impressive Gothic churches, Santa Maria
Novella and Santa Croce (see figs. 2.34, 2.37), were com-
missioned respectively by the Dominicans and Franciscans,
new mendicant orders founded in the thirteenth century
that required large open spaces to hold the standing
crowds who gathered to hear the preachers for which these
orders became famous (church pews were a later develop-
ment). When the crowds overflowed the enormous
churches, portable pulpits were mounted near the facades
and the preachers spoke to crowds gathered in their
large piazzas.

The complexes erected throughout Italy by the Domini-
cans and Franciscans during the thirteenth, fourteenth, and
fifteenth centuries had to be located on the edge of the city
proper because of their huge scale, as the plans demon-
strate (see figs. 2.35, 2.37). In addition to the church with
its family chapels, these monastic centers had to include all
the facilities needed for the numerous resident priests and
nuns, including refectories (for dining) and two-story clois-
ters with monk’s cells on the upper level (see fig. 9.6).

2.32. GIOVANNI PISANO. Madonna and Child, c. 1305-6.
Marble, height 5 Q 3 M" (129 cm). Arena Chapel, Padua. Commis-
sioned by Enrico Scrovegni, who also commissioned the chapel’s
frescoes from Giotto (see figs. 3.3-3.17).

6 4 * THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

2.33. Florence, Baptistery. Romanesque (?). The building is usually dated to the eleventh century, but some argue that it was built as early as the
sixth or seventh century. A consecration was held in 1059, supporting the eleventh-century date. The lantern dates from 1150 and the angled,
striped corner pilasters were added in the thirteenth century. The materials are white Carrara marble and dark green marble from Prato. This
historic view shows the building before the fifteenth-century bronze doors by Lorenzo Ghiberti, known as the Gates of Paradise (see figs. 10.1,
10.13-10.15), were removed in the late twentieth century for display in the nearby Museo dell’Opera del Duomo. During the Gothic period there
was a sculptural group over the doorway, which was replaced in the sixteenth century with a marble group; in this photograph that group has
been removed for restoration.

DUECENTO ART IN TUSCANY AND ROME * 6 5

2.34. Nave and choir, Sta. Maria Novella, Florence. An earlier
Dominican church was founded here in 1221. This structure was
begun in 1246, constructed between 1246 and the mid-1300s, and
consecrated in 1420. The material is pietra forte (local limestone).
For the later, Renaissance facade of the church, see fig. 10.6. For the
location of some of the many works of art found here, see fig. 2.35.

Santa Maria Novella (figs. 2.34-2.35) exemplifies the
simplicity of plan, organization, and detail that character-
izes Italian Gothic architecture. The plan is derived from
those developed for churches of the Cistercian Order in
France, in which a flat east end was substituted for the
more common rounded or polygonal apse. The relatively
high side aisles at Santa Maria Novella, leaving little room
for a clerestory above the nave and none for a triforium,
are typically Italian. So is the contrast between the stone
supports and arches and the plaster that covers walls and
vaulting. The pointed arches are striped in stone like the
arches of the tombs that line the lower, Gothic part of the
facade (see fig. 10.6). The arches and vault ribs are flat (in
French Gothic they are usually rounded), the colonettes
found on the side walls of French Gothic churches are
absent, and the piers that support the nave, which in
France are delineated by clusters of colonettes, are as
simple as those found in French Romanesque structures.
There is, moreover, no formal separation between the nave

2.35. Plan of Sta. Maria Novella, Florence.

1. Original location for Duccio’s Madonna
and Child (see fig. 4.1).

2. Coronation of the Virgin , rose window by
Andrea da Firenze (see fig. 5.9).

3. Strozzi Chapel with frescoes painted by
Nardo di Cione, stained glass designed by
the same artist, and altarpiece by Andrea
Orcagna (see figs. 5.2-5. 3).

4. Chapter House (Spanish Chapel), with
frescoes by Andrea da Firenze (see figs. 5.1,

5.8).

5. Trinity, Masaccio (see fig. 8.21).

6. Original location of Sandro Botticelli,
Adoration of the Magi ( see fig. 13.18).

7. Second Strozzi Chapel, with frescoes by
Filippino Lippi and stained glass designed
by the same artist (see figs. 13.33-13.34).

8. Tornabuoni Chapel (Capella Maggiore),
with frescoes and altarpiece (now removed)
by Domenico Ghirlandaio and stained glass
designed by the same artist (see figs.
13.38-13.39).

9. Chiostro Verde (Green Cloister), with
frescoes by Paolo Uccello and others (see
fig. 11.4).

10. Large cloister.

The Crucifix painted by Giotto (see fig. 3.2)
was probably painted for Sta. Maria
Novella, but its original location in the
church is unknown.

66 * THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

arcade and the wall above, which is pierced by simple oculi
instead of the usual pointed Gothic windows. As a result,
nothing interrupts the membrane of the wall, which creates
not just an effect of unity, but even a feeling of calm
repose. This is in striking contrast to the energetic pictorial
art and rich sculpture that we have been discussing.

However different the architectural forms of Santa
Maria Novella may be from the later, classically derived
elements of the Renaissance, the harmony of its lines and
spaces renders it a fitting precursor of such Quattrocento
churches as Florence’s San Lorenzo and Santo Spirito (see
figs. 6.17-6.18). At a moment when French architects were
trying to dissolve the wall entirely in order to convert
churches into elaborate stone cages to embrace surfaces of
colored glass, the builders of Santa Maria Novella pro-
claimed the quintessentially Italian supremacy of the wall.

So did the architect of Santa Croce (figs. 2.36-2.37), the
Franciscan church on the opposite side of the city, but in a
very different way. In all probability this master was

2.37. Plan of Sta. Croce, Florence.

1. Bardi Chapel, with frescoes by Giotto
(see figs. 3.19-3.23).

2. Baroncelli Chapel, with frescoes by Taddeo
Gaddi (see figs. 3.29, 3.30).

3. Bardi-Bardi di Vernio Chapel with frescoes
by Maso di Banco (see fig. 3.27).

4. Alberti Chapel, with frescoes by Agnolo
Gaddi (see figs. 3.19, 5.11).

5. Annunciation by Donatello (see fig.

10 . 21 ).

6. Tomb of Lionardo Bruni, by Bernardo
Rossellino (see fig. 10.27).

7. Tomb of Carlo Marsuppini, by Desiderio
da Settignano (see figs. 12.10, 12.11).

8. Tomb of Michelangelo, designed by
Giorgio Vasari.

9. Tomb of the nineteenth-century Italian
composer Giacomo Rossini, by G. Cassioli
(1900).

10. Pulpit by Benedetto da Maiano.

11. Sacristy.

12. First cloister.

13. Refectory, with Last Supper and other
subjects, frescoes by Taddeo Gaddi (see fig.
3.31).

14. Pazzi Chapel (Chapter House) by Filippo
Brunelleschi (see figs. 6.1, 6.21).

15. Second cloister.

(Third cloister is not shown on plan.)

2.36. ARNOLFO DI CAMBIO (attributed to). Nave and choir,

Sta. Croce, Florence. Begun 1294, with work continuing well into the
Trecento. Pietra forte (local limestone). For the location of some of
the many works of art found here, see fig. 2.37.

DUECENTO ART IN TUSCANY AND ROME * 6j

Arnolfo di Cambio, who was also important as a sculptor,
a pupil and co-worker of Nicola Pisano, and the first archi-
tect of the new Cathedral of Florence (see figs. 2.38-2.39).
The plan combines a timber-roofed nave with a vaulted
polygonal apse separated from the nave by a triumphal
arch somewhat like those of the Early Christian basilicas in
Rome but with pointed arches and windows. Octagonal
columns replace the compound piers used in Santa Maria
Novella, which are needless here since there is no vaulting.
A catwalk carried on corbels separates the small clerestory
from the nave arcade, and carries the eye down the nave
and up over the crossing to the triumphal arch.

Santa Croce’s loftiness and the openness of its arches
make it seem almost endless. From the start, the wall sur-
faces were intended for painting, as were the windows for
stained glass. In fact, the nave was still being built when

Giotto and his followers were at work painting frescoes
on the walls of some of the transept chapels (see figs.
3.19-3.23). The Trecento painted decoration of the ceiling
beams — still largely intact — is an essential aspect of the
splendor of Santa Croce.

Florence’s cathedral or Duomo ( duomo , derived from
the Latin word domus , “house,” is the Italian word for
cathedral) (figs. 2.38-2.39; see also fig. 1.8) was begun in
1296 under the direction of Arnolfo di Cambio to replace
the earlier church of Santa Reparata, but work came prac-
tically to a standstill after Arnolfo’s death in 1302. Atten-
tion turned to the Campanile, which was built in stages by
three different architects: Giotto, Andrea Pisano, and, in
the 1350s, Francesco Talenti. The cathedral itself was the
subject of complex group activity. In 1355 a commission
was appointed; its personnel were to change, but it included

2.38. Nave and choir, Florence
Cathedral. Begun by Arnolfo di
Cambio, 1296. Present nave by
Francesco Talenti and others (after
1364). Dome engineered by Filippo
Brunelleschi (see fig. 6.11). For views
of the exterior, see figs. 1.8, 6. 7-6.9.

68 • THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

2.39. Plan of cathedral complex,
Florence.

The shaded plan represents the earlier
church of Sta. Reparata.

A. Baptistery (see figs. 2.9, 2.33).

B. Campanile (see fig. 3.25), original
location of reliefs by Andrea Pisano (see
figs. 1.11, 3.32) and others, and figures
by Donatello (see fig. 7.17) and others.

C. Duomo (see figs. 1 . 8 , 6 . 7-6.9).

1. Portal with bronze doors by Andrea
Pisano (see figs. 3.33-3.34).

2. Portal with first set of bronze doors
by Lorenzo Ghiberti (see figs. 7.4-7.6).

3. Original location for second set of
bronze doors ( Gates of Paradise) by
Lorenzo Ghiberti (see figs. 2.33, 10 . 1 ,
10.13-10.15), now in the Museo
dell’Opera del Duomo.

4. Porta della Mandorla with relief by
Nanni di Banco (see fig. 7.16).

5. Sir John Hawkwood , by Paolo Uccello
(see fig. 11.3).

6 . Niccold da Tolentino , by Andrea del
Castagno (see fig. 11.18).

7. Sacristy portal with enameled terra-
cotta relief and bronze doors by Luca
della Robbia (see fig. 10.18). Luca della
Robbia’s Cantoria (see figs. 10.16-10.17)
was located above this door.

8 . Portal over which Donatello’s
Cantoria was originally placed (see fig.
10.19).

9. Sacristy with intarsia decoration by
Antonio Manetti and others (see fig.
12.16).

the painters Taddeo Gaddi, Orcagna, and Andrea da Firenze,
as well as sculptors and prominent citizens. Model after
model for the church was submitted to the commission and
accepted or rejected; somehow the work went on, although
rejected ideas were often resubmitted. One of these may be
the design recorded in Andrea da Firenze’s fresco of the
Triumph of the Church (see fig. 5.1).

It is not completely clear how much, if any, of Arnolfo’s
original design was kept and how much of the present
Duomo can be attributed to the documented activity there
of Francesco Talenti, Fra Jacopo Talenti (no relation),
Simone Talenti (Francesco’s son), and the painters. In
1364, the commission adopted Francesco Talenti’s pro-
posals for the piers and cornice, which were embodied in
a model constructed in 1367 on the designs of Neri di
Fioravante. At that time, the commission ordered the
destruction of competing designs and models and absolute
adherence to the official project. The final design was a
striking compromise between a central plan and a Latin
cross. Three polygonal apses, each with five radiating
chapels, were to surround an octagonal dome, under
which the high altar was to be placed. On the outside,
these tribunes were to culminate in semidomes intended to
buttress the central dome, but at the time no one knew
how a dome of this scale could be engineered and con-
structed. It has been argued that this later Trecento design
follows Arnolfo di Cambio’s basic plan, but on a much
larger scale.

The interior of the cathedral consists of a majestic nave
of four enormous square bays, its lofty arches opening
onto side aisles half the width of the nave. The nave leads
to the centralized space below the great octagonal dome.
The building was planned so that vast crowds could be
accommodated for ceremonies at the high altar and the
fifteen surrounding chapels. The warm brown stone of the
piers, capitals, and other details enhances the interior’s
imposing simplicity. The Florentine Duomo was not con-
secrated until 1436, when the dome, apparently first envi-
sioned by Arnolfo di Cambio, was near completion under
Filippo Brunelleschi (see figs. 6.7-6.12). In the Italian city-

DUECENTO ART IN TUSCANY AND ROME • 69

states the building that housed the government competed
in physical bulk and artistic magnificence with the princi-
pal churches. Florence was no exception.

Also attributed to Arnolfo is the Palazzo dei Priori (fig.
2.40; the Priori, or Priors, were the principal governing
body of Florence). Its tower dominates a whole section of
Florence and in popular imagination is grouped with the
dome of the cathedral as one of the two quintessential
symbols of the city. The palazzo is the largest and also one
of the last of the Italian medieval communal palaces to be
built. Its front part was erected in only eleven years — an
astonishingly short space of time for a building of this
scale; later additions to the back did not change the facade.
The building fronts a piazza produced by the destruction,

in 1258, of the houses of the traitorous Uberti family, who
fled Florence and later fought with the Sienese at the Battle
of Montaperti. Their property was confiscated and the
Priori declared that no buildings would ever stand there,
thus providing for a large open space that set off the new
communal palace. Built of pietra forte , a tan-colored local
stone, the Palazzo dei Priori appears as a gigantic block,
divided by stringcourses (narrow horizontal moldings) into
a ground floor and two main stories, each of great height,
and crowned by powerfully projecting machicolations
carried on corbels and culminating in a crenellated
parapet. The great tower is placed off-center, perhaps to
make use of the foundations of earlier house-towers. It
thrusts aggressively forward, out over the corbelled arcade,

2.40. ARNOLFO DI CAMBIO
(attributed to). Palazzo dei Priori (now
known as Palazzo Vecchio), Florence, on
the left. 1299-1310; interior remodeled
1540-65 by the Medici as a family
residence. Pietra forte (local limestone).
On the right is the Loggia della Signoria
(now called Loggia dei Lanzi), which is
shown in a closer view in fig. 2.41. To
the left is the Fountain of Neptune (see
figs. 20.24-20.25).

A Florentine citizen entering the Piazza
della Signoria from the main street that
connects the religious center of Florence,
Piazza del Duomo, with this civic center,
would have experienced the massive
Palazzo dei Priori from a similarly
dramatic angle. Documents suggest that
when Brunelleschi set out to
demonstrate perspective (see p. 162), he
used a similar viewpoint, on street level.
The Medici were expelled from Florence
in 1494, and Donatello’s sculpture of
Judith and Holofemes (see fig. 12.7)
was moved to the platform in front of
the Palazzo dei Priori, where it was
joined in 1504 by Michelangelo’s David
(see fig. 16.1; the figure seen in the
illustration is a copy). The Medici
returned to the city in 1512, and in 1540
made the former city hall their personal
residence. In the later sixteenth century
the palace was decorated to accommod-
ate its new function as the family palace
(see figs. 20.35-20.36, 20.43-20.44).

70 * THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

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-.41. Loggia della Signoria. Built 1376-c. 1381 under the supervision of Benci di Cione and Simone Talenti. Pietra forte, with the virtues above
executed in marble with colored and gold glass backgrounds. When the sixteenth-century Medici transformed this speakers’ platform into a guard
station, the name was changed to Loggia dei Lanzi (Loggia of the Lances), by which the loggia is known today. At that time it also became a place
lor the presentation of sculpture, some of it in support of the Medici regime. Underneath the left arch of the loggia: lOt Perseus and Medusa, by
Benvenuto Cellini (see fig. 20.22); under the right arch: uii Capture of the Sabine Woman, by Giovanni Bologna (see figs. 20.29-20.30); to the left
its a copy of Michelangelo’s David (see fig. 16.1), placed on the statue’s original site in front of the Palazzo dei Priori.

and terminates in more corbelled machicolations, another
crenellated parapet, and a baldacchino - like bell enclosure
supported on four huge columns.

The roughness of the blocks, which are rusticated as in
Roman military architecture, accentuates the brutal power
of the massive building. It seems even more impregnable by
virtue of the delicacy of the mullioned windows with their
trefoil arches, in imitation of French Gothic models. Its
simplicity and force, its triumphant assertion of the noble
Human capacity to govern, were intended to symbolize the
victory of civic harmony over the internal strife that tore
the republic apart in the late Duecento.

Our final example of early Florentine architecture is
the Loggia della Signoria (fig. 2.41). It was built much
pater, 1376-c. 1381, as a speakers’ platform, ostensibly to

protect the city’s republican representatives when they
were speaking to the citizenry gathered in the Piazza della
Signoria, the city’s largest open public space. In the
sixteenth century the Medici would take this symbol of
Florentine republicanism and transform it into a guard
station, making it clear that republican notions would not
be tolerated in the Medici grand duchy. When built, the
loggia’s grand rounded arches would have expressed the
power of the city’s governing bodies; that the popular
Gothic style was avoided in this civic structure may be a
reference to the ancient Roman origins of the city. The
numerous small lions at the bases of the piers were
symbols of the republic, and the virtues represented in the
spandrels expressed the kind of behavior expected of the
city’s elected officials.

DUECENTO ART IN TUSCANY AND ROME • 71

Hn 0£:fA

FLORENTINE ART OF
THE EARLY TRECENTO

I n the early Trecento, a new style of painting
emerged that revolutionized the art of Florence,
Tuscany, and eventually that of the entire Western
world. The man who initiated this new style is
Giotto di Bondone (c. 1277-1337).

Giotto

The importance of Giotto was not lost on his contempo-
raries. The Chronicle of Giovanni Villani, written a few
years after Giotto’s death, rated him among the great
personalities of the day. The writer Giovanni Boccaccio
claimed that Giotto had “brought back to light” the art of
painting “that for many centuries had been buried under
the errors of some who painted more to delight the eyes
of the ignorant than to please the intellect of the wise”
i Decameron , VI, 5). Later, in his treatise On Poetry ,
Boccaccio compared Giotto to the ancient Greek painter
Apelles, about whose works he had read in the writings
of Pliny.

In a passage from the Divine Comedy (XI, 94-96),
Dante tells of an encounter in purgatory with the minia-
turist Oderisi da Gubbio, who compares his fall from
popularity with that of Cimabue as an example of the tran-
sience of worldly fame. Dante writes that it was Giotto
who stole Cima hue’s fame: “O empty glory of human
powers! ... Cimabue thought to hold the field in painting,
and now Giotto has the cry, so that the former’s fame is
dim.” Dante compared Giotto’s success to that of the poet
Guido Cavalcanti, inventor of the dolce stil nuovo (sweet
or beautiful new style), whose poetry, written in the Tuscan

Opposite: 3.1. GIOTTO. Fresco. Arena Chapel, Padua. This fresco
appears over the entrance door.

dialect rather than the customary Latin, chased his com-
petitors from the field.

Dante’s statement about the change in taste from
Cimabue to Giotto is true. Soon after Giotto established
his style in Florence, the Byzantinizing manner of Cimabue
was no longer practiced. Florentine painters began to
imitate Giotto’s style, which also spread to other centers in
Tuscany, including Siena, and then up and down the Adri-
atic coast, capturing one provincial school after another. It
met resistance only in Venice, which was strongly tied to
the Greek East, and in Piedmont and Lombardy, where the
Northern Gothic style was a potent influence. Giotto’s new
direction remained dominant into the Quattrocento, when
Renaissance artists and writers insisted that Giotto was
their true artistic ancestor. At few other moments in the
history of painting has a single artist’s work led to so rapid,
widespread, and complete a change.

What was this new style? Cennino Cennini, who
claimed to have been the pupil of Agnolo Gaddi (himself
the son and pupil of Taddeo Gaddi, one of Giotto’s closest
followers), declared that Giotto had translated painting
from Greek (by which he meant Byzantine) into Latin. In
the sixteenth century, Vasari wrote that Giotto had aban-
doned the “rude manner” of the Greeks and, since he con-
tinued to “derive from Nature, he deserves to be called the
pupil of Nature and no other.” In exalting Giotto, Vasari
ignored the fact that Cimabue and the Sienese painter
Duccio (see Chapter 4) had already transformed the
Byzantine style. To Trecento commentators, naturalism
was equated with Latinity, which meant ancient Roman
culture. For his contemporaries and successors the virtue
of Giotto’s style seems to have been based in its fidelity to
the human, natural, Italian world they knew, as against the
artificial manner from the Byzantine East. Although
Cennini never wrote that Giotto drew from posed models,

FLORENTINE ART OF THE EARLY TRECENTO • 73

3.2. GIOTTO. Crucifix, c. 1295. Panel, 19' x 13 '4" (5.8 x 4 m).

Sta. Maria Novella, Florence. In 1568 Vasari wrote that Giotto
“became so good an imitator of nature that he banished completely
the rude Greek [i.e., Byzantine] manner and revived the modern
and good art of painting, introducing the portraying well from
nature of living people, which had not been used for more than two
hundred years.”

Villani suggested this when he referred to Giotto as “he
who drew every figure and action from nature.”

The surviving work of Italy’s early Trecento painters
represents only a fraction of what they must actually have
painted. As we read Vasari’s accounts of Giotto’s output —
remembering that some of the paintings he mentions may
have been by other artists — we realize how little now
remains of what Giotto produced during the course of his
life. He reportedly worked throughout Tuscany, northern
Italy, and the Kingdom of Naples, including its capital,
then ruled by a French dynasty. Giotto was said to have
traveled to France to work in Avignon, the new seat of the
papacy after 1305, a possibility that is supported by the
French contacts evident in his style. Commercial relations
between Florence and all parts of Europe were so routine
during the Trecento that we cannot deny the possibility of

a trip to France for so prosperous and acclaimed an
artist as Giotto.

Whether or not he studied with Cimabue in Florence, as
Vasari claimed, the older painter played little part in the
formation of Giotto’s style. The dominant influences seem
to have been several: ancient Roman sculpture, the sculp-
ture of the Pisano family, the paintings of Pietro Cavallini,
French sculpture seen either in France or through small,
imported works, and — perhaps most importantly — nature.

During most of the Duecento, Florence and its territory
had been the scene of warfare between the Guelphs, who
favored the pope, and the Ghibellines, who were loosely
attached to the Holy Roman Emperor. In reality, this was
a class conflict; the Ghibellines were the feudal nobility,
and they and their supporters looked to the emperor to
maintain their traditional power. The Florentine Guelphs
were mostly artisans and merchants who had succeeded in
establishing guilds by the Ordinances of Justice in 1293;
these regulations disenfranchised nobles unless they were
willing to adopt a trade and join a guild. An attempt by the
nobles to regain power was put down in 1302, and hun-
dreds of Ghibellines, including Dante, were exiled. The art
of Giotto emerged within the context of the prosperous
commercial and artisan class, emphasizing measure,
balance, order, and the drama that develops between
human beings who live and work at close quarters.

A comparison of a restored Crucifix now widely
accepted as one of Giotto’s earliest works (fig. 3.2) with
Cimabue’s Crucifix at Santa Croce (see figs. 2.11-2.12) is
instructive. The basic design of the two works is the same,
with the body of Christ isolated against the decorated, tra-
ditional frame, and half-length figures of the Virgin and
John the Evangelist in the side terminals. But Giotto has
replaced the abstracted Byzantine segmentation of bodies,
heads, and hands with three-dimensional forms modeled in
light. While the flowing, two-dimensional pattern of
Cimabue’s Christ is locked into a composition of horizon-
tals, verticals, and decorative patterns, the body of Giotto’s
Christ is profoundly three-dimensional and seems to be
hanging in space in front of the cross. Christ’s head falls
forward, while his lower body seems to fall back against
the cross. His mouth falls open, exposing his lower teeth,
his hair falls naturally to the side of his face, and the nails
force his hands to cup the surrounding space. The physi-
cality of Giotto’s very human Christ — truly a Christus
mortuus — draws an empathetic response from the viewer.

THE ARENA CHAPEL. During this period Padua, a
university city not far from Venice, regained its republican
independence. In 1300 a wealthy Paduan merchant, Enrico
Scrovegni, notorious for loaning money at exorbitant rates
of interest, acquired the ruins of an ancient Roman arena

74 * THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

on which a chapel dedicated to the Virgin Annunciate was
located. Three years after acquiring the site for his palace,
Scrovegni began building a new chapel, probably in the
hope of atoning for the usury he and his father had com-
mitted. In 1305 the chapel was consecrated, and copies of
the chapel’s frescoes are found in a manuscript dated to
1306. From the start, apparently, Scrovegni thought of
commissioning Giotto, who, according to one account,
was satis iuvenis (“fairly young”), to paint the interior. In
the past Giotto was often given complete credit for plan-
ning the cycle, but it is likely that theological advisers and
perhaps also the patron played an important role in the
development of this complex intellectual program. Although
he undoubtedly had assistants working with him, Giotto
certainly painted the principal figures of each scene.

The Arena Chapel frescoes represent Giotto’s greatest
achievement (figs. 3.1, 3. 3-3. 5). Their state of preservation
is astonishing, especially given that an Allied bomb nar-
rowly missed the chapel during World War II. Since the
chapel was attached to the palace on the north side, there
are windows on the south only. These were kept small to
provide as much wall space as possible for the frescoes,
which are designed in three superimposed rows. To sepa-
rate each scene, Giotto designed frames that form a con-
tinuous structure of simulated architecture. The vault is
painted the same unifying blue as the background color in
the frescoes — naturally enough, since vaults and domes
were traditionally held to be symbolic of heaven, and doc-
uments show that an interior vault was often referred to as
il cielo (“the sky”). The chapel’s vault is dotted with gold

3.3. GIOTTO. Fresco cycle. Arena Chapel, Padua, c. 1302-1305. Commissioned by Enrico Scrovegni.

FLORENTINE ART OF THE EARLY TRECENTO * J 5

stars, while figures of Christ, the Virgin, the four Evange-
lists, and four prophets appear in circular frames that seem
to pierce the sky to reveal the golden glory of heaven
beyond (see fig. 3.1).

The chapel is dedicated to the Virgin of Charity. The
bands of paintings illustrate the lives of the Virgin and
Christ in thirty-eight framed scenes (figs. 3.4-3.5). The
episodes chosen emphasize the role of the Virgin in Christ’s
life as related in the Golden Legend by the thirteenth-
century Genoese bishop Jacobus de Voragine. Narration
begins on the upper level, to the right of the entrance to the
sanctuary, with the events of the lives of Joachim and
Anna, Mary’s parents. The early life of the Virgin is repre-
sented on the left top register and continues with the

Annunciation , with Gabriel and Mary on either side of the
chancel arch; above we see the unusual scene of God the
Father sending Gabriel on his mission to Mary. On the
second level, the infancy of Christ begins on the right-hand
wall and culminates in his adult mission, on the left. On
the lowest tier, the earlier scenes of the Passion of Christ on
the right are followed on the left by his Crucifixion and
subsequent events. The level below is treated like wain-
scoting, with panels painted in imitation of marble alter-
nating with images of the Seven Virtues (on the right) and
the Seven Vices (on the left), painted in grisaille as if they
were stone sculptures. This drama of human salvation
comes to a climax in the Last Judgment , which covers the
entrance wall (see fig. 3.1).

3.4. Iconographic diagram of Giotto’s fresco cycle at the Arena Chapel, Padua. Computerized reconstruction by Sarah Loyd Cameron, after
Flores d’Arcais.

LIVES OF JOACHIM AND ANNA: 1 .Joachim Expelled from the Temple ; 2. Joachim Takes Refuge in the Wilderness (see fig. 3.6);

3. Annunciation to Anna ; 4. Sacrifice of Joachim; 5. Dream of Joachim; 6. Meeting at the Golden Gate (see fig. 3.7).

EARLY LIFE OF THE VIRGIN MARY: 7. Birth of the Virgin; 8. Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple; 9. Suitors Presenting the Rods (see
fig. 3.5); 10. Prayer Before the Rods (see fig. 3.5); 11. Marriage of Mary and Joseph; 12. Wedding Procession; 13. God's Mission to Gabriel;

14A. & 14B. Annunciation (see figs. 3. 8-3.9); 15. Visitation.

LIFE OF CHRIST: 16. Nativity and Annunciation to the Shepherds (see fig. 3.10); 17. Adoration of the Magi; 18. Presentation of Christ in
the Temple; 19. Flight into Egypt; 20. Massacre of the Innocents; 21. Christ Disputing with the Doctors in the Temple; 22. Baptism of Christ,

23. Marriage Feast at Cana (see fig. 3.5); 24. Raising of Lazarus (see fig. 3.11); 25. Entry into Jerusalem; 26. Christ Driving the Money
Changers from the Temple; 27. Judas Receiving the Blood Money from the High Priests of the Temple; 28. Last Supper, 29. Washing of the Feet;
30. Kiss of Judas (see fig. 3.12); 3 1 . Jesus before Caiaphas; 32. Crowning with Thoms; 33. Christ Carrying the Cross; 34. Crucifixion;

35. Lamentation (see fig. 3.13); 36. Noli Me Tangere (see fig. 3.5); 37. Ascension of Christ, 38. Pentecost.

SEVEN VICES: A. Despair, B. Envy; C. Infidelity (see fig. 3.5); D. Injustice (see fig. 3.16); E. Anger (see fig. 3.5); F. Inconstancy (see fig. 3.17);
G. Folly .

SEVEN VIRTUES: H. Prudence; I. Fortitude; J. Temperance; K. Justice (see fig. 3.15); L. Faith; M. Charity; N. Hope.

ENTRANCE WALL: Last Judgment, with Enrico Scrovegni Offering the Model of the Chapel to the Virgin Mary (see figs. 3.1, 3.14).

Opposite: 3.5. GIOTTO. Arena Chapel, Padua. Portion of the left (north) wall. Frescoes in the top register: Suitors Presenting the Rods and the
Prayer Before the Rods; middle register: Marriage Feast at Cana and Raising of Lazarus; lower register: Lamentation and Noli Me Tangere;
bottom: figures of the vices of Infidelity, Injustice, and Anger.

76 •

THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

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Giotto’s narration has been compared to that of the
cinema because of his sense of timing as scene follows
scene. Most observers entering the chapel probably do not
immediately recognize the element of time, but they are
aware that they have stepped into a world of order and
balance. Clear light, simply defined masses, and beautiful
glowing color characterize Giotto’s style. In the nineteenth
century, the critic John Ruskin described this color as “the
April freshness of Giotto.”

Italian documents contain no word for “scene;” the
word used is storie (“stories”). In Giotto’s frescoed cycle,
we can follow the plot in each storia , usually accompanied
by one or two subplots, as we move through the series.
In an incident from the life of the Virgin, for example
(fig. 3.6), the aged Joachim has been expelled from the
temple because he and his wife are childless, and he is
taking refuge with shepherds in the wilderness. The
composition is based on the human relationships among
the figures. Humiliation overcomes Joachim, and the
youthful shepherds accept him reluctantly; one looks
toward the other, attempting to gauge his friend’s response

and judge whether it is safe to take in this outcast. The
landscape frames and accentuates this tense moment. Then
comes the subplot: the sheep pour out of their fold, and the
dog, symbol of fidelity, leaps upward in recognition of the
role Joachim will play in sacred history.

The landscape is powerfully projected but deliberately
restricted in scope. Writing in the late Trecento, Cennini
suggested that in order to paint a landscape, it is necessary
only for the artist to set up some rocks in the bottega to
stand for mountains and a few branches for a forest. Yet
Giotto’s rocky backgrounds form an effective stage setting
for his dramas, and in later scenes that take place in the
same spot he did not hesitate to rearrange the rocks to
bring out the meaning of the moment. The rocks enclose a
distinct space that is ultimately limited, as in all the scenes,
by the continuous blue background. There are no clouds
and no suggestion of other atmospheric phenomena,
except where they are needed to indicate the celestial origin
of the angels. He often, however, suggested a slightly
broader or more distant space: trees are shown cut off by
rocks, so that we read them as growing on the other side

THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

of the hill, for example, and his figures sometimes appear
or disappear behind the frame at the sides of scenes.
Within the shallow box of space defined by the rocks, the
figures stand forth in three dimensions like columns.
Giotto’s drapery is simplified to bring out the cylindrical
mass of the figures, whose profile, one-quarter, and even
back views replace the customary three-quarter profile of
figures found in Duecento painting. The head of the shep-
herd to the right in Joachim Takes Refuge in the Wilder-
ness is foreshortened in space. According to Vasari, Giotto
was the first artist to render forms in foreshortening.

Cennini’s recommendation that distant objects should
be painted darker than those in the foreground must have
been another convention derived from Giotto: the fore-
most leaves on Giotto’s trees are lighter than those farther
away. In subtle gradations, Giotto’s light models faces,

drapery, rocks, and trees with a delicacy that establishes
their existence in space. However, Giotto’s light is not
derived from a single source. A uniform illumination
bathes all scenes alike, regardless of the time of day, and
this helps maintain the unity of the chapel. As a whole,
Giotto’s light, having no specific origin, casts no shadows.
With few exceptions, cast shadows do not appear in paint-
ing until the Quattrocento, yet we can hardly imagine that
Trecento painters were unaware of them. In a famous
passage in the Inferno, one of the damned asks who Dante
is, since he — unlike the dead — casts a shadow. This is only
one example from a rich medieval tradition of literature on
light and its behavior, but for some reason painters did not
consider natural light effects suitable for representation.

The final scene of this first group is the Meeting at the
Golden Gate (fig. 3.7). Joachim has received a revelation

FLORENTINE ART OF THE EARLY TRECENTO ♦ 79

3.8, 3.9. GIOTTO. Annunciation. Fresco, each 6' 4 3 A" x 4'H" (1.95 x 1.5 m). Arena Chapel, Padua. See also fig. 3.3.

from an angel that his wife, Anna, will bear a child, and
he returns to Jerusalem to tell her, just as she rushes out to
break her identical news to him. Their encounter occurs
on a bridge outside the Golden Gate of Jerusalem. Like the
rocks in Giotto’s landscapes, a few simple architectural
elements symbolize a complex reality. Trecento convention
explains the disparity in scale between Giotto’s figures
and the painted architecture. Architecture is large in
relation to people, and to apply the same scale to both
would mean reducing the figures to a point where the
narrative would become too small to be read or limiting
the architecture to the lower portions of buildings. Giotto
and his followers were content with rendering a double
scale that presented the story within a reduced architec-
tural setting.

In this case, the architecture focuses attention on the
emotions of the figures. In this joyous reunion of a
husband and wife sharing precious news, Anna puts one
hand around Joachim’s head, drawing his face toward hers
for a long embrace. As always, Giotto’s draftsmanship is
broad and simple, leaving out details that might interrupt
his message of human feeling or the powerful clarity of
his form. One subplot can be sensed in the happy neigh-
bors; another appears in the shepherd who carries
Joachim’s belongings.

Turning to the events directly connected with the life of
Christ, we find the Annunciation (figs. 3. 8-3. 9) on the
chancel arch. Its position reflects a tradition in Byzantine
art in which the chancel arch symbolized the entrance to
the sanctuary of the temple, which is described with its
gate shut by the prophet Ezekiel: “And no man shall
enter in by it; because the Lord, the God of Israel, hath
entered in by it, therefore it shall be shut. It is for the
prince; the prince, he shall sit in it to eat bread before the
Lord; he shall enter by way of the porch of that gate, and
shall go out by the way of the same” (Ezekiel 44:2-3). To
Christian theologians, this closed gate (porta clausa),
which only the Lord entered and left, was a symbol of
Mary’s virginity; the prince was Christ and the bread the
Eucharist. Giotto’s choice of cusped Gothic arches for the
balconies on either side is important, for throughout the
chapel Giotto used the older round Romanesque arch to
refer to the Old Law and the modern pointed Gothic arch
as a symbol for the New Testament. Here, at the moment
of Christ’s conception, we see, appropriately, the first
Gothic arches in the cycle.

Giotto represented the Annunciation, Christ’s incarna-
tion in human form, in a new way that communicates his
understanding of the human experience. He stressed the
moment in which Mary accepts her responsibility, when

80 * THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

she says: “Be it done to me according to thy word.” To
indicate her agreement, she crosses her hands upon her
chest and kneels; in earlier Byzantine examples, Mary had
always been represented as standing. A flood of light,
painted with a soft orange-yellow pigment, descends on
the figure of the Virgin. This suggests actual light, not
golden rays (even though the haloes are still rendered as
gold disks). Since there are no sources of natural light in
Giotto’s art, this must be the light of heaven. Light was (and
b| identified mystically with Christ: “In him was life; and
tie life was the light of men. ... That is the true Light which
lights every man who comes into the world” (John 1:4, 9).

The limited spaces into which Giotto placed Gabriel and
Mary were probably derived from stage constructions used
in earlier Paduan dramatizations of the Annunciation.

Such re-enactments started at the local cathedral and
culminated in performances in the Arena Chapel.
Following convention, Giotto removed the front walls to
show the interiors.

Before Giotto, Italian artists had almost always placed
the Nativity in a cave, a Byzantine tradition. The biblical
account, however, specifies no precise setting. In the Arena
Chapel j Giotto, perhaps under the influence of French
Gothic developments, depicted the scene in a shed (fig.
3.10). Fie also eliminated the scene of the baby’s bath
common in Byzantine-inspired representations (see fig.
4.4). Here a midwife hands the Christ Child, already
washed and wrapped, to Mary, while the animals look on
in fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecy: “The ox
knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib” (Isaiah

L 10. GIOTTO. Nativity and Annunciation to the Shepherds . Fresco, 6'6 3 /4" x 6' 7 /8 M (2 x 1.85 m). Arena Chapel, Padua.

FLORENTINE ART OF THE EARLY TRECENTO * 8 I

1:3). One shepherd has turned his back to us — a seemingly
simple device that reveals Giotto’s new attitude toward
space: he could turn and move his figures in any direction.
Giotto’s backs, moreover, can be expressive: the shepherd’s
astonishment is evident in the set of his shoulders, the way
his head tilts back, and how he pulls his garment more
tightly around him.

The adult Christ in the Raising of Lazarus (fig. 3.11) is
the short-bearded Christ of French Gothic tradition, as at
Amiens Cathedral (see fig. 2.25). He appears more natural
than the Byzantine type favored by Coppo and Cimabue.
Lazarus’ sisters, Mary and Martha, prostrate themselves
before Christ in supplication, while he calls their brother
from the dead with a simple gesture. Giotto included the

figures who cover their noses mentioned in the biblical text
(“by this time he stinketh,” John 11:39). The scene is
divided into simple blocks of figures by broad diagonals,
verticals, and rhythmic curves.

Giotto again used a figure’s back as an expressive device
in the workman on the right. The pale pea-green of his
robe has rust-colored shadows, the formula for which was
recorded in Cennini’s handbook. A striking bit of coloris-
tic freedom appears in the veined marble of the tomb slab.
The blue of several garments, including that of Christ, was
rendered in a pigment that, Cennini said, could not be
painted in true fresco and therefore had to be added a
secco. As a result of peeling, the underlying painting has
been partially revealed. On this, the north wall, Gothic

3.11. GIOTTO. Raising of Lazarus. Fresco, 6'6 3 / 4 " x 6' 7 / s" (2 x 1.85 m). Arena Chapel, Padua. The small scene in the quatrefoil to the left is the
Creation of Adam. See also fig. 3.5.

82 * THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

quatrefoils frame smaller scenes that act as commentaries
on the large scenes of Christ’s life. In this case the Old
Testament scene of God creating Adam is a fitting parallel
for Christ raising Lazarus.

In the Kiss of Judas (fig. 3.12), Giotto followed the
conventional composition of the narrative. Christ’s body
almost disappears in the sweep of Judas’s cloak, but he
stands as firmly as he did in the Raising of Lazarus , and
with the same calm gaze. Giotto exploited the contrast
between Christ’s profile and the rather bestial features of
Judas, whose lips are pursed for the treacherous kiss.
These details express the age-old confrontation between
good and evil. The contrast is made even more striking
since, in the preceding scene of the Last Supper , Judas
had the same handsome, youthful face as some of the
other apostles. But the Gospel account tells us that the
devil entered into Judas when he dipped his bread in

the wine at the Last Supper (John 13:27; see p. 272).
Giotto heightens the drama in this scene by inserting the
faces of two Roman soldiers between the profiles of
Judas and Christ.

Two subplots flank the main group. To the left is the
episode of Peter cutting off the ear of Malchus, the high
priest’s servant, which iconographic tradition required.
Giotto virtually concealed the event behind the hulking
back of a hooded attendant, who tries to restrain one of
the fleeing apostles. On the right, the high priest points
toward the treacherous embrace in the center, yet he seems
to vacillate as he does so, as if unable to face the wicked-
ness of Judas’s betrayal. Note that Christ’s halo, modeled
in plaster, is foreshortened and seems to recede into space.
The swords, halberds, and torches were painted a secco
and have mostly peeled off, dissipating some of the
composition’s original effect, but the manner in which these

3.12. GIOTTO. Kiss of Judas. Fresco, 6 ' 6 3 / 4 " x 6 1 7 /s " (2 x 1.85 m). Arena Chapel, Padua.

FLORENTINE ART OF THE EARLY TRECENTO • 83

3.13. GIOTTO. Lamentation. Fresco, 6'6 3 / 4 " x 6 ,7 /8" (2 x 1.85 m). Arena Chapel, Padua. The small scene in the quatrefoil to the left is Jonah Being
Swallowed by the Whale , which was interpreted by theologians as an Old Testament parallel to this period in the life of Christ. See also fig. 3.5.

weapons converge to focus our attention on the faces of the
two protagonists increases the effect of climactic drama.

The Lamentation (fig. 3.13; see fig. 3.5), like the Kiss of
Judas , follows in its most general outlines the traditional
Byzantine type (see fig. 2.5) common in Duecento Italy (see
figs. 2.4, 2.7). The dead Christ is stretched across the lap
of Mary, his head upheld by a mourning figure seen only
from the back, while another holds up one of his hands.
Mary Magdalen gazes down at his feet. John the Evange-
list stands with arms outstretched, and the long line of the
barren rock behind him leads the eye back down to the
intimate interchange between Mary and Christ. The angels
here move discordantly, twisting and turning first toward
us, then away, while the drapery lines of the main figures
draw our attention downward, toward the earth. Here and
there Giotto’s startling use of color is visible: note the
apostle to the far right, whose green cloak has plum-
colored shadows.

The scenes of the cycle were selected and arranged to
bring out underlying theological and dramatic relation-

ships. The scene that follows the Lamentation , for
example, is the Noli Me Tangere (see fig. 3.5), which
shows the moment after the Resurrection when Mary
Magdalene sees Christ near his tomb, and he tells her that
she should not touch him (“Noli me tangere”). As Christ
moves away from Mary to express this idea, part of his
figure disappears behind Giotto’s painted border. While
the composition of the Lamentation has a focal point in
the lower left corner, dragging the viewer’s eyes downward
and stopping the left-to-right narrative flow, the placement
of Christ to the far right in the subsequent scene jump-
starts the narrative again. Above the Noli Me Tangere is
the Raising of Lazarus , a scene of resurrection that paral-
lels that of Christ below it.

The Last Judgment (see fig. 3.1) fills the entire entrance
wall, except for the window, around which Giotto
deployed ranks of angels. On either side of the window,
archangels roll away the sun, the moon, and the heavens
like a scroll (Isaiah 34:4; Revelation 6:14), revealing the
golden gates of paradise. In the center of the wall, Christ,

84 * THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

wearing his seamless robe, appears as judge. His throne
and the great mandorla that surrounds him are made up of
colored feathers graduated in color and tone like the wings
of Duecento angels. Whereas Coppo’s terrifying judge (see
fig. 2.9) stares impassively, Giotto’s compassionate Christ
averts his face from the damned and seems to betray grief
over their fate. The apostles are enthroned to the sides.
Below, the dead rise from their graves and are welcomed
into heaven or consigned to hell. The Divine Comedy ,
begun by Dante at approximately this time, would provide
later painters with an inexhaustible supply of details about
the torments of hell, but Giotto here represented a limited
number of punishments. The explicit physical torment suf-
fered by some of the sinners is unforgettable. A monk is
hung by his tongue, for example, while the woman next to
him is suspended by her hair. One figure is being turned on
a spit, while a trussed woman has hot lead poured into her
mouth. A_ devil uses tongs to squeeze the penis of one
sinner. Although these figures are small, their individual
suffering is clearly visible to the observer standing in the

chapel. Rivers of red and orange fire flow from the throne
of Christ to engulf the damned. The physical nature of
many of the punishments seems consistent with Giotto’s
interest in naturalism and human experience.

Over the door of the chapel, angels hold the cross of
Christ. Kneeling below are Enrico Scrovegni and an Augus-
tinian monk (fig. 3.14), who together hold a model of the
Arena Chapel as Scrovegni’s offering. These two portraits
and others found within the ranks of the blessed are early
examples of the interest in portraiture that will emerge in
the fifteenth century; perhaps a self-portrait of Giotto and
portraits of his assistants are included among the blessed.
Enrico Scrovegni would have been recognizable to con-
temporary Paduans; one wonders what their reactions
were to the placement of this notorious usurer among the
blessed. The identity of the figures who stand behind the
model of the chapel has been a matter of controversy, but
the central one is certainly the Virgin Mary, to whom the
chapel was dedicated; her extended hand suggest that
Scrovegni’s offering would be acceptable to her.

3.14. GIOTTO. Enrico Scrovegni Offering the Model of the Arena Chapel to the Virgin Mary, detail of Last Judgment (see fig. 3.1).
Arena Chapel, Padua.

• 8 5

FLORENTINE ART OF THE EARLY TRECENTO

3.15, 3.16, 3.17. GIOTT O. Justice, Injustice (see fig. 3.5), and Inconstancy . Fresco, each 47 V 4 x 21 Vs" (120 x 55 cm). Arena Chapel, Padua.

The virtues and vices on the lower sections of the walls
recall a tradition common in French Gothic portal sculp-
ture. Justice (fig. 3.15) is a regal female figure before
whom commerce, agriculture, and travel proceed undis-
turbed. Her male counterpart, Injustice (fig. 3.16), is a
robber baron (reminding us that Padua and Florence were
merchant republics organized against the nobility), who,
from his castle gates surrounded by rocks and forests, pre-
sides over rape and murder. The vice of Inconstancy (fig.
3.17) tilts on a precarious wheel, losing the very balance
that for Giotto was an essential aspect of human existence.
The painted marble panels that surround them (see fig.
3.5) offer beautiful patterns and reveal the skill of Giotto
and his workshop at trompe I’oeil painting.

THE OGNISSANTI MADONNA. The Enthroned
Madonna with Saints (fig. 3.18), painted for the Church of
Ognissanti (All Saints), was probably executed between
1305 and 1310. The gabled shape is similar to that of
Duccio’s Madonna and Child for the Laudesi (see fig. 4.1),
Cimabue’s Enthroned Madonna and Child (see fig. 2.10),
and other Duecento altarpieces. Giotto placed the Virgin
on a Gothic throne, similar to that of Justice in the Arena
Chapel. With its pointed vault, delicate gable ornamented

with crockets, and open wings, the throne provides a cubic
space for the Madonna that is utterly different from the
elaborate Byzantine thrones of the Duecento. Narrow
panels are filled with delicate ornament that contrasts with
the abstract forms of the marble veining, which are fluid
and brilliant in color. The Virgin gazes outward with the
calm dignity we expect from Giotto, but her lips are parted
to give the effect of the natural passage of breath. Com-
pared to earlier Duecento Madonnas, Giotto’s Madonna
expresses stability and warm humanity. Christ lifts his
right hand in a gesture of teaching, holds the scroll in his
left, and opens his mouth as if speaking.

As in the Crucifix and the frescoes, Giotto has aban-
doned the anatomical compartmentalization of the Italo-
Byzantine style. The delicate forms of the stone throne
enhance the suggestion of massive bodies placed in depth.
The robust Christ Child is lightly but firmly held by his
mother, whose fingertips press against his waist. Her right
hand is sculptural in its apparent roundness, and the round
neckline of the tunic enhances the cylindrical shape of her
neck. Christ’s massive head turns in space, completely
hiding the right ear from sight.

On each side of the throne saints are grouped with
angels, and all are smaller in scale than Mary, Queen of

3.18. GIOTTO. Enthroned Madonna with Saints ( Ognissanti Madonna), c. 1305-10. Panel, 10'8" x 6 ' 8 V 4 " (3.25 x 2 m). Uffizi Gallery,
Florence. Commissioned for the high altar of the Church of Ognissanti in Florence.

86 * THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

FLORENTINE ART OP THE EARLY TRECENTO

Heaven. The two foremost standing angels hold a
crown and a box. They are in profile, as are the kneeling
angels before the throne who present vases of lilies and
roses, symbols of the Virgin. The clarity of their profiles is
strikingly similar to that of Giovanni Pisano’s Madonna
made for the Arena Chapel (see fig. 2.32). They look
awestruck, suggesting that they are participants in a heav-
enly scene.

THE BARDI AND PERUZZI CHAPELS. After
the fresco cycle in Padua and the Ognissanti Madonna ,
Giotto’s style underwent a change. Of the four fresco
cycles he and his bottega painted in the Franciscan Church
of Santa Croce in Florence, only two examples survive, in
the chapels of the Bardi and Peruzzi, families who con-
trolled Italy’s two greatest banking houses (fig. 3.19). Both
appear to date from the 1320s, a period of turmoil during

3.19. View of the interior of the Franciscan Church of Sta. Croce in Florence. A fresco cycle of 1388-93 by Agnolo Gaddi (see fig. 5.11)
surrounds the high altar in the center, and the fresco cycle of the Bardi Chapel by Giotto (see figs. 3.20-3.23) is to the right.

88 * THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

which the popular government was threatened from
within, while attacks from the Ghibeliine forces of Pisa
and Lucca reduced the republic’s territory. Under such cir-
cumstances, perhaps the heroic harmonies of the Arena
Chapel could not be recaptured.

Both chapels were whitewashed in the eighteenth
century and cleaned and overpainted in the nineteenth. A
twentieth-century restoration removed most repainting,
(Revealing a different situation in each chapel. The Bardi
Chapel, frescoed with scenes from the life of St. Francis,
reappeared in good condition, except for gaps left by
earlier mutilations. But since the Peruzzi Chapel was
painted largely a secco and later whitewashed, it is a ghost
of its former self and none of its scenes is illustrated here.
In all his fresco cycles, Giotto must have had assistance in
laying out the surface and in the actual painting, especially
when rendering the background figures and less important
details. Conservation work in both chapels has shown that
there were no sinopie on the walls, so preparatory draw-

ings on paper or parchment were probably used to trans-
fer Giotto’s ideas to the pictorial surface.

At first sight, little appears to be going on in the Bardi
frescoes, but a closer look discloses how Giotto modified
his dramatic style in his later years. St, Francis Undergoing
the Test by Fire Before the Sultan of Egypt (fig. 3.20) rep-
resents an episode from Francis’s trip in 1219 to Egypt,
where he tried to convert Sultan Melek-el-Kamel. Francis
offered to walk through fire to prove his faith, challenging
Muslim scholars to undergo a similar test. In his represen-
tation of this event, Giotto stepped back from the intensity
that made the Arena Chapel frescoes so powerful. The
sultan sits on his throne, while on the right St. Francis
calmly prepares to enter the fire. The scholars’ fear is con-
veyed through their positions and expressions. The two
servants beside them (among the earliest known represen-
tations of black people in Western art) are naturalistically
rendered in their rich coloring, set off by their luminous
white and soft gray garments, and in their facial structure.

3.20. GIOTTO. St. Francis Undergoing the Test by Fire Before the Sultan of Egypt. Probably 1320s. Fresco, 9'2" x 14'9" (2.8 x 4.5 m). Bardi
Chapel, Sta. Croce, Florence. Commissioned by a member of the Bardi family.

FLORENTINE ART OF THE EARLY TRECENTO * 89

3.21. GIOTTO. Funeral of St Francis. Probably 1320s. Fresco, 9'2" x 149" (2.8 x 4.5 m). Bardi Chapel, Sta. Croce, Florence.

To appreciate the Funeral of St. Francis (fig. 3.21) we
must ignore the mutilation that resulted when the frescoes
were whitewashed and a tomb, now removed, was added.
The saint lies upon a bier. Friars crowd around him, weeping,
kissing his hands and feet, or gazing into his face. Priests
and monks at the saint’s head intone the service for the
dead. A richly dressed knight, his back to the spectator,
kneels beside Francis and thrusts his hand into the wound
in the saint’s side in order to prove Francis’s stigmata.
Above, angels bear the released soul heavenward, his Fran-
ciscan habit now transformed into a celestial amethyst
shade. The composition is carefully balanced, but a closer
view reveals dramatic details (fig. 3.22). The face of the
saint, and those of the mourners, express powerful
emotion. The new calm and breadth of the Bardi fresco is
evident in the response of the brother who looks upward
in wonder at the soul being carried to heaven, whose
expression seems to have been painted quickly in order to
capture the figure’s astonishment.

Above the entrance to the chapel is Giotto’s Stigmatiza-
tion of St. Francis (fig. 3.23), which is visible in the views
of Santa Croce to the right of the chancel opening (see figs.

3.22. Detail of fig. 3.21.

9 0 *

THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

1 4

2.36, 3.19). This subject had been represented many times
since its earliest known depiction by Bonaventura
Berlinghieri (see fig. 2.6, upper left-hand corner). Accord-
ing to the Legenda Maior , the official life of St. Francis
written by St. Bonaventura, Francis was meditating on the
lofty peak of La Verna when he asked a follower to bring
him the Gospels and open them at random. Three times
the book opened to the sufferings of Christ. At that
moment, Francis knew he had been chosen to endure trials
similar to those of Christ. Suddenly, a six-winged flaming
seraph descended toward him, and in the midst of the
wings appeared a crucified figure. Christ’s Crucifixion
pierced St. Francis’s soul “with a sword of compassionate
grief,” and when the vision disappeared, the marks of the
nails began to appear in his hands and feet, turning rapidly
into the nails themselves — the heads on one side, the bent-
down points on the other — and his right side was marked
with a wound that often bled. A later version of the life of
St. Francis, the anonymous Fioretti (“little flowers”),

speaks of a light that illuminated the surrounding moun-
tains. Berlinghieri did not depict this light in any way, but
other Duecento painters represented it as stripes of gold
descending toward the saint. In Giotto’s fresco, gold rays
project from the wounds of Christ to the corresponding
spots on Francis’s body. The spiritual light radiating from
the figure of Christ is the sole source of illumination. A tree
to the right bends as if swayed by the storm of the appari-
tion. On the left is the saint’s cave, while the falcon who
awakened Francis each morning is perched on a ledge
below the summit of the peak.

In earlier representations, St. Francis kneels before the
vision on one knee or both; here he turns away and then,
raising his right knee, turns back toward the vision in what
seems to be a combination of fear, surprise, pain, and,
finally, acceptance. Only much later, in the works of
Michelangelo, will we find a colossal figure of such com-
plexity or one that so richly combines changing spiritual
states and dynamic physical movement.

3.23. GIOTTO. Stigmatization of St. Francis . Probably 1320s. Fresco, 12' 9" x 12'2" (3.9 x 3.7 m). Bardi Chapel, Sta. Croce, Florence.

FLORENTINE ART OF THE EARLY TRECENTO • 91

THE DESIGN FOR THE CAMPANILE OF
FLORENCE C AT H E D R A L . The principal surviving
achievement of Giotto’s last years is his design for the
Campanile of the Cathedral of Florence (fig. 3.24). In
January 1334, the commune appointed Giotto capomae-
stro of the cathedral in an extraordinary document that
extols his fame as a painter but mentions no architectural
training or experience. By this time, only the partially com-
pleted facade and south wall of the cathedral had been
built. In April 1334, a document mentions the Campanile,
the only portion of the cathedral with which the aging
artist was involved. By January 1337, Giotto had died, but
in the brief intervening period, work had proceeded on the
bell tower at a rapid pace. A massive foundation was laid,
and the first story constructed based on a large, tinted
drawing on parchment. The drawing itself was probably
carried out by assistants under Giotto’s direction.

In the tradition of Tuscan campanili , the windows mul-
tiply as the stories rise. The final story in the drawing is an
octagonal bell chamber flanked by pinnacles that are set
on octagonal corner buttresses rising from the ground.
Giotto’s design has been related to that of an earlier tower
at the Cathedral of Freiburg im Breisgau in Germany. In
certain respects, the two structures are quite different:
while Giotto’s spire and pinnacles are solid, those at
Freiburg, as in most other German cathedrals, are open
tracery. Both the angles of Giotto’s spire and the character
of its crockets correspond to those of the solid spires
begun, but never carried out, on the towers of Reims
Cathedral in France. The tracery of Giotto’s windows,
with their beautiful pointed arches and crocketed gables,
also resembles that at Reims.

The lower story of the Campanile as built (fig. 3.25)
relates closely to Giotto’s design, in which hexagons of
white marble are placed within vertical pink marble
panels. In the drawing these hexagons are repeated in the
second story in a staccato pattern within bands enframing
a quatrefoil window; two such bands appear on the third
and fourth stories, one on the fifth, and none thereafter.
Looking up, the effect would have been an oscillation of
white hexagons against pink to the height of about 200
feet. There would have been seventy-five hexagons on each
face of the Campanile, or three hundred for the entire
structure, which tells us something about Giotto’s desire
for mathematical balance. Giotto’s tower, furthermore, has

3.24. GIOTTO (design attributed to). Proposed design for the Campanile of the Cathedral,
Florence, c. 1334. Tinted drawing on parchment, height of image 6 TO" (2.08 m). Museo
dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena. Commissioned by the Arte della Lana.

92 * THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

seven stories — the number of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit
and of the Joys and Sorrows of the Virgin. In addition, the
hexagons are grouped in sevens, fours, eights (numbers
connected with the Resurrection), and twelves (the number
of the apostles and the gates of the New Jerusalem); and
the perfect number one hundred is multiplied in their total
by the number of the Trinity. Such number symbolism was
widespread in the later Middle Ages.

Giotto, aware of the force of wind pressure on such a
lofty bell chamber, added iron tie-rods from the pinnacles
through the oculi of the corner windows, possibly to some
stabilizing framework inside. Given his caution, it is sur-
prising that he crowned his slender pinnacles with marble
angels, their wings widespread, and poised a colossal
Archangel Michael holding a banner on the tip of his spire,
some 300 feet above the ground; all of these would have
been exposed to wind, rain, ice, and snow. His successors
chose not to follow his design (see p. 68). After his death
it was discovered that the walls of the first story were
insubstantial and their thickness had to be doubled. After
all, Giotto was a painter, not an engineer or mason, and his
design for the tower was a painter’s tribute to the glory of
his beloved Florence.

UPPER CHURCH OF SAN FRANCESCO,
ASSISI. One of the most extensive Italian fresco cycles is
the series of twenty-eight scenes from the life of St. Francis
in the Upper Church of San Francesco at Assisi (see fig.
2.15). The cycle is also of special importance given the
subject matter. What has vexed scholars has been the pos-
sible role of Giotto in designing and/or painting the cycle
early in his career. This topic has been left until this point
because there is still no general agreement.

Some scholars accept all but four of the scenes as early
works of Giotto, but many others reject this attribution
and date the scenes somewhat later. A few contemporane-
ous models existed for some scenes (see fig. 2.6), but no
models survive for most of them and the solutions to
the narrative problems raised by the new subjects often
display striking originality, conceived in terms of a fresh,
new naturalism.

No documents survive that would shed light on the
series, and references to Giotto’s work “at Assisi” may well
refer to other paintings and not the Francis cycle. A chron-
icler named Riccobaldo wrote in approximately 1313 that

3.25. Campanile of the Cathedral, Florence. Lowest story by Giotto,
1334-37; next three stories by Andrea Pisano, c. 1337-43; remainder by
Francesco Talenti, 1350s. Height 278' (84.7 m) Commissioned by the
Arte della Lana. For examples of the sculptural decoration, see figs.
1.11,3.32, 7.17.

FLORENTINE ART OF THE EARLY TRECENTO * 93

the quality of Giotto’s art can be seen in “the works he
made in the churches of the Franciscans at Assisi, Rimini,
and Padua, and in the church of the Arena.” Since the
Arena ChapeJ frescoes have been preserved, and since we
know that paintings by Giotto once decorated the Francis-
can churches in Rimini and Padua, it is argued that Ric-
cobaldo, writing while Giotto was still alive, was correct
about Assisi as well and that his remarks could only refer
to the St. Francis cycle.

In each bay, painted spiral colonnettes resting on con-
soles and supporting an elaborate architrave above divide
the wall into three or four scenes (fig. 3.26). By simulating
architectural space, the artist responsible for the general
layout established the illusion of a continuous portico as
deep as the real catwalk above. Through this portico we
read the vivid scenes of the life of St. Francis, largely based
on the account in the Legenda Maior of St. Bona ventura.

Each bay is organized as a triptych, as in Scenes IV-VI
shown here, in which two incidents involving collapsing
churches flank a central event taking place in an open
piazza. As in these scenes, the actual sequence of incidents
in the Legenda Maior was sometimes altered in the Assisi
cycle to demonstrate an underlying narrative and spiritual
structure. In St. Francis Praying Before the Crucifix at San
Damiano , the jagged masses of fragmentary walls quickly
attract attention. In the second scene, St Francis Renounc-

ing His Worldly Goods , the piazza is split vertically,
leaving on one side Francis’s raging father and on the other
an embarrassed bishop cloaking the naked saint; Francis
stretches out his hands in prayer to the hand of God, which
can be seen above. The complex setting suggests the detail
and charm of an Italian cityscape, and is unlike Giotto’s
more rudimentary architectural forms. The Dream of
Innocent III shows the pope reclining in a sumptuous
interior, while Francis upholds a collapsing building
identifiable as the Basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano.
Throughout the cycle, the color is crisp, clear, and decorative.

Despite the originality of the conceptions and fascinat-
ing episodes of careful observation, the compositions are
staccato and abrupt, in contrast to Giotto’s characteristic
sense of balance. Facial expressions are generally uncom-
municative, while the figures themselves do not have the
massive presence of those of Giotto. Neither the impact
nor the force of Giotto’s figures is present in the Assisi
cycle, while profiles, so characteristic of Giotto, are rare.
The landscape scenes, none of which is illustrated here,
have a kind of complexity alien not only to Giotto’s land-
scape as we know it, but also to the manner of composing
that Cennino Cennini said was derived from Giotto. To
many, the differences in style and quality between the
Francis cycle and the known works of Giotto are too great
to be embraced by the style of a single artist.

3.26. MASTER OF THE ST. FRANCIS CYCLE. St. Francis Praying Before the Crucifix at San Damiano ; St. Francis Renouncing His
Worldly Goods; Dream of Innocent III Early fourteenth century. Fresco, each 8'10" x 77" (2.7 x 2.3 m). Upper Church of S. Francesco, Assisi.
See also fig. 2.15.

94 * THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

The need to demonstrate that the Francis cycle at Assisi
is not by Giotto has had a somewhat negative impact on its
reputation, preventing us from recognizing its unique qual-
ities. The cycle is revolutionary in ways that reveal an
alternative direction to that taken by Giotto. Many of the
scenes at Assisi offer a vivid, naturalistic effect that indi-
cates an interest in capturing vignettes of everyday life. In
several scenes the artist squeezes in the crowds that must
have accompanied Francis, while in others we have
glimpses of authentic, albeit miniaturized, architecture
from the period, such as the convincing depiction of the
ruined church in figure 3.26. In a scene not illustrated here
that is set in Assisi, the artist represented the facade of an
ancient Roman temple that is near the church where we
view the fresco; such an inclusion was intended to con-
vince the viewer that the miracle represented was vivid and
real. The life and character of Francis of Assisi, who lived,
died, and was canonized less than a century before the fres-
coes were painted, are rendered accessible and immediate
in the daring new naturalism of this cycle.

While the style suggests that at least three different
masters painted the scenes, the consistency of the compo-

sitions suggests that one artist must have made designs for
all twenty-eight, which were then approved by the superior
general of the Franciscan Order. The connections with
ancient Roman architecture and painting are so strong that
it seems likely the master who designed the cycle and the
painters of the majority of the scenes were from Rome, of
a generation following Jacopo Torriti and Pietro Cavallini.

Florentine Painters after Giotto

The authority of Giotto’s style in Florence was so great
that it may well have impeded the emergence of other
innovative artists. Nonetheless, three of Giotto’s Florentine
assistants became important painters in their own right.
Closest to the master, perhaps, is Maso di Banco (active
1330s and 1340s). His fresco cycle at Santa Croce featured
scenes from the lives of the Emperor Constantine and St.
Sylvester, the pope whose legend held that he baptized the
emperor. In one scene set in the Roman forum, St. Sylvester
seals the mouth of a dragon whose breath has killed two
pagan magicians (fig. 3.27). The magicians lie dead amid
Roman ruins but then Sylvester resurrects them and they

3.27. MASO DI BANCO. St. Sylvester Sealing the Dragon’s Mouth and Resuscitating Two Pagan Magicians, c. 1336-39. Fresco, width 17' 6"
(5.34 m). Bardi-Bardi di Vemio Chapel, Sta. Croce, Florence.

FLORENTINE ART OF THE EARLY TRECENTO * 95

are shown alive, kneeling in thankfulness. This before-and-
after representation is typical of Trecento miracle
paintings. The massive figures and treatment of space
and lighting were learned from Giotto but, through
overlapping, Maso has created a much greater sense of
spatial depth and complexity than is found in the works of
Giotto. The Roman ruins, with their piles of debris, empty
arches, and plants growing in the cracks, evoke the
desolation wrought by the dragon, an essential part of
the narrative.

Bernardo Daddi (active c. 1312^48), another Giotto fol-
lower, is an artist whose sensitivity was more suited to panel
paintings than to frescoes. A triptych intended for personal
devotion (fig. 3.28) is typical of the intimacy of his best
pictures, showing a different approach to the Virgin and
Child from the majestic images in the tradition that runs
from Coppo di Marcovaldo to Giotto. Daddi’s Virgin
smiles gently as she admonishes the playful Christ Child.
The delicate Gothic forms of the throne provide ample
space for her, yet seem to diminish her monumental size. The

3.28. BERNARDO DADDI. Triptych. 1333 (?). Central panel, 35 3 /s x 38V8" (89 x 97 cm). Loggia del Bigallo, Florence.

96 • THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

donors are smaller in scale, following convention. Saints
and prophets frame the main scene. The intimacy extends to
the side wings: in the Nativity to the left, for example, Mary
has taken Christ out of the manger to cradle him on her lap,
while the Crucifixion on the right is calm and restrained,
creating an effect of introspection in the figures of Francis,
kneeling at the foot of the cross, and St. John the Evangelist.

The intimacy of Daddi’s narratives is probably the result
of a happy conjunction of his own temperament, the more
relaxed taste of the 1340s, and the example of Gothic

ivory carvings brought from France, which often reveal a
similar sweetness and playfulness. But Daddi is never sen-
timental: his forms are round and firm, his drawing is
precise, his modeling clear, and his color resonant. His
drapery folds flow easily while still emphasizing the three-
dimensional bodies of his figures.

The principal achievement of Taddeo Gaddi (active
c. 1328-c. 1366), another faithful follower of Giotto and
father of Agnolo Gaddi, is the fresco cycle in the Baroncelli
Chapel, one of the larger chapels in Santa Croce (fig. 3.29).

3.29. View of the Baroncelli Chapel, Sta. Croce, Florence, with frescoes of scenes from the Life of the Virgin by Taddeo Gaddi of c. 1328-30 and
an altarpiece of the Coronation of the Virgin unth Saints signed by Giotto. Frescoes commissioned by Bivigliano, Bartolo, and Salvestro Manetti
and by Vanni and Piero Bandini de’ Baroncelli. The frescoes on the vault represent the Four Cardinal Virtues. The stained-glass window,
designed by Taddeo Gaddi, features standing figures of saints with, at the top, the Stigmatization of St. Francis.

* 9 7

FLORENTINE ART OF THE EARLY TRECENTO

As much of the work was produced during Giotto’s
last years, it may reflect his ideas. Giotto signed the
altarpiece, although critics agree that it is largely a work-
shop production. The Annunciation to the Shepherds
(fig. 3.30) is notable for its dramatic rendering of the effect
of nighttime light, an important forerunner of later efforts
in this direction, including Correggio’s Cinquecento
Adoration of the Shepherds (see fig. 18.42), and all its
Baroque descendants. The angel casts a strong light onto
the dark hillside, where the shepherds are guarding
their sheep.

Taddeo’s Last Supper with the Tree of Life in the refec-
tory of Santa Croce shows the vigor of this painter (fig.
3.31). The fresco illustrates a theme developed by St.
Bona ventura. Christ hangs not upon the conventional
cross but upon the symbolic Tree of Life, which grew
alongside the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden
(Genesis 2:9). The medallions hanging from it, the fruits of
this tree, represent the four Evangelists and twelve
prophets. With the exception of the Stigmatization of St.
Francis , the scenes to the sides are set at meals, an appro-
priate choice for the refectory where the monks ate while

3.30. TADDEO GADDI.
Annunciation to the Shepherds .
c. 1328-30. Fresco. Baroncelli
Chapel, Sta. Croce, Florence.
See also fig. 3.29.

98 • THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

listening to readings and sermons. The Last Supper below
is the earliest surviving example of the many that still
decorate the refectories of Florentine monasteries and
convents. The strong, simple figures with their harsh
expressions contrast with the delicate refinement of those

by Daddi. Christ and the apostles seem to be placed in
front of the bands that divide the upper scenes, so they are
thrust forward toward the viewer. Judas is located on
“our” side of the table, a placement that persists in art
until Leonardo's Last Supper more than a century later.

3.31. TADDEO GADDI. Frescoes of the Last Supper with the Tree of Life and Other Scenes, c. 1360. Width 39' (12 m). Refectory, Sta. Croce,
Florence. Commissioned by the woman in the garments of a Franciscan tertiary kneeling at the foot of the cross, behind St. Francis. At the right
are the Priest at his Easter Meal Receiving Word of St. Benedict's Plunger in the Wilderness and Maty Magdalen Washing the Feet of Christy at
the left are the Stigmatization of St. Francis and St. Louis of Toulouse Feeding the Poor and Sick of Toulouse.

FLORENTINE ART OF THE EARLY TRECENTO * 9 9

Above: 3.32. ANDREA PISANO
{from a design by Giotto?). Creation
of Adam. c. 1334-37. Marble,

32 3 /4 x 27 ’A" (83 x 69 cm). Removed
from original location on the
Campanile, Florence (see fig. 3.25 ■
and now in the Museo dell’Opera del
Duomo, Florence. Commissioned by
the Arte della Fana.

3.33. ANDREA PISANO. South
Doors. 1330-36. Bronze with
gilding, 16' x 9'2” (4.86 x 2.8 m).
Baptistery. Florence. Commissioned
by the Arte di Calimala. The outer
frame was commissioned from
Lorenzo and Vittorio Ghiberti in
1452 but not completed until 1463,
eight years after Lorenzo’s death.

Sculpture

Giotto’s style dominated the art of the Trecento, including
sculpture. The work of Andrea Pisano has a special
relationship to Giotto and his works. Andrea (c.
1290-1348) was of no relation to Nicola and Giovanni
Pisano; he acquired his name because he came from a
town then in Pisan territory. We have already noted his
architectural work on the Florentine Campanile and the
reliefs he sculpted, probably based on designs by Giotto to
decorate the structure (see fig. 1. 1 if, Lorenzo Ghiberti
claimed to have seen Giotto’s designs for these reliefs,
which he says were “most exceptionally drawn.” The
Creation of Adam (fig. 3.32), which begins the series,

XOO • THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

3.34. ANDREA PISANO
(perhaps after a design by
Giotto). The Baptism of the
Multitude , panel on the South
Doors. 1330-36. Bronze with
gilding, 19V4X 17" (48x43
cm). Baptistery, Florence.

obviously derives directly from Giotto’s quatrefoil repre-
senting the same subject in the decorative framework of
the Arena Chapel (see figs. 3.5, 3.11). The figures and their
poses are almost identical, although the increased size of
Andrea’s image permitted the figure of God the Creator to
be shown in its entirety and allowed the addition of a
splendid array of trees, including both the Tree of Knowl-
edge and the Tree of Life.

Andrea had been brought to Florence as a specialist in
bronze casting to help make a set of bronze doors for one
of the portals of the Florentine Baptistery (see fig. 2.33).
These doors feature twenty scenes from the life of St. John
the Baptist with figures of eight virtues below (fig. 3.33).
Like the two sets of doors by Ghiberti that followed in the
Quattrocento, they consist of bronze panels set in a bronze
frame. The figures and many of the raised elements of
ornament, architecture, and landscape were originally
covered with gold leaf. The individual compositions of the
scenes from the Baptist’s life, with one exception, are

derived from either the Baptistery mosaics (see fig. 2.9) or
Giotto’s fresco cycle in the Peruzzi Chapel at Santa Croce;
perhaps as an outsider Andrea’s contract required him to
employ these Florentine models in representing the life of
the city’s patron saint. Or, since Giotto was then the capo-
maestro of the cathedral complex, it is possible that he
might have provided drawings from these sources for
Andrea to follow. The limited depth, well-spaced composi-
tions, and simple stagelike sets are directly related to
Giotto’s vision of form and space, and especially to his
economy of statement. The scene of The Baptism of the
Multitude (fig. 3.34) is neatly balanced inside the fashion-
able Gothic quatrefoil.

We have seen how Giotto’s new style and narrative inter-
pretation dominated Florentine art in the first half of the
Trecento. Before turning to its crucial role in the second
half of the century, we need to turn our attention to the
artistic changes that took place in another Tuscan city:
Siena. Here, too, Giotto’s influence was to be important.

FLORENTINE ART OF THE EARLY TRECENTO * IOI

I o z

T H

LATE M 1 D D I E A G E S

SIENESE ART OF
THE EARLY TRECENTO

A s in Florence, painters in Siena moved
decisively away from the Byzantine style.
During the late Duecento and early
Trecento in Siena, it was Duccio di
Buoninsegna (active 1278-1318) who was
at the forefront of the new developments.

Duccio

Documents surviving from Duccio’s life show that fines
were levied against the painter for breaking a curfew,
declining to swear allegiance to an important official, and
refusing to fulfill military service. He did not pay some of
the fines for years, and when he died his children
renounced his will, possibly because it consisted mostly of
debts. In Siena, Duccio may well have witnessed the
carving of the cathedral pulpit by Nicola Pisano and his
assistants, including his son Giovanni (see fig. 2.24). In
Florence, Cimabue’s Enthroned Madonna and Child in
Santa Trinita (see fig. 2.10) must have excited the young
painter. The earliest major work we know by Duccio is,
surprisingly, a Florentine commission, a huge Madonna
and Child (fig. 4.1) that has been identified with a
Madonna commissioned in 1285 by a group founded to
combat heresy, the “Society of the Virgin Mary.” Known

popularly as the Laudesi from the lauds or hymns of praise
they sang to the Virgin Mother, this group had its own
chapel at Santa Maria Novella.

In the Uffizi today, Cimabue’s and Duccio’s Madonnas
are displayed in the same room, enabling us to contrast the
differences between them. Duccio’s Virgin is seated side-
ways on an elegant wooden throne seen slightly from the
right. The surrounding angels kneel naturally on one knee,
and their placement against the gold ground suggests that
they physically support the throne. Except for the cloth
around the legs of the Christ Child, Duccio has abandoned
the Byzantine gold drapery striations used by Cimabue;
Duccio’s drapery suggests the manner in which cloth wraps
around and over three-dimensional bodies. The border of
the Virgin’s cloak, embellished with a delicate golden
fringe, cascades in a series of flowing curves that adds a
decorative touch. The colors of the angels’ robes offer a
refinement new to Italian panel painting, with flowerlike
tones of lavender, yellow, rose, and luminous gray-blues
and gray-lavenders.

Refinement of surface is emphasized. The arches on the
Virgin’s throne are hung with a splendid patterned silk, its
folds indicated by strokes of thin wash brushed over the
painted design. The same pattern reappears in the frag-
mentary frescoes in the chapel of the Laudesi at Santa

Opposite: 4.1. DUCCIO. Madonna and Child (Kucellai Madonna ). Commissioned 1285. Panel, 14'9V8" x 9'6V8" (4.5 x 2.9 m). Uffizi Gallery,
Florence. Commissioned by the Society of the Virgin Mary (the “Laudesi”) but now known as the Kucellai Madonna because it once stood in the
Rucellai family chapel in the Dominican church of Sta. Maria Novella (see fig. 2.35).

The contract for this work clarifies the role patrons could take in directing an artist’s production, for it states that Duccio should “paint the said
panel and adorn it with the image of the Blessed Virgin Mary and her omnipotent Son and other figures, in accordance with the wishes and
pleasure of the said commissioners, and to gild it, and to do each and every thing which will contribute to the beauty of said panel .... ” Duccio’s
fee for painting the panel, 150 “lire of small florins,” was stipulated in the contract.

SIENESE ART OF THE EARLY TRECENTO • IO 3

Maria Novella, suggesting that Duccio’s Madonna may
have been part of a wider decorative program. The frescoes
have been attributed to both Duccio and Cimabue. The
gold of the haloes is tooled in a pattern of interlocking
circles and foliate designs derived, like the patterns of the
silk, from French Gothic sources, while tiny Gothic arches
decorate the spindles of the throne. The frame is painted
with a series of images of saints alternating with orna-
mented bands.

The ovoid shapes of the Virgin’s face are similar to those
of Coppo di Marcovaldo’s Virgin (see fig. 2.8), but
Duccio’s are more organic, in keeping with the Sienese
artist’s interest in undulating line and more naturalistic
form. Her eyes are outlined in curves that unite the brow
with her long, slender nose. Her upper lip protrudes
slightly and the chin recedes to suggest her modesty. The
angels, whose faces are similarly constructed, gaze in
reverence toward the Christ Child, who extends a blessing
with his outstretched hand.

Despite the subtle color and elegance of line, Duccio’s
picture offers a revolutionary exploration of space with its
side view of the throne and the clear articulation of its
support by surrounding angels. This redefinition of the
Italo-Byzantine style in terms of both space and decoration
surely had an effect on contemporary Florentine painters,
including the young Giotto.

The small personal devotional image of the Madonna
and Child by Duccio discussed in Chapter 1 as an example
of tempera technique (see fig. 1.14) was painted at least a
decade later, but the Byzantine influence is still paramount
in the facial types. Duccio’s signature flowing line is
repeated in the drapery patterns. What is new and remark-
able here is the use of a parapet in perspective across the
foreground, which serves to remove the holy figures from
the real space of the worshipper — a device that did not
become common until the second half of the fifteenth
century. The figures are also humanized in a manner not
often found in Byzantine examples, with Christ reaching
up to touch the Virgin’s veil in a natural manner that has
no precedent. The Madonna’s pensive gaze establishes an
interaction between the figures.

For Sienese citizens, the Virgin Mary was the Mother of
God, the Queen of Heaven, and the patron saint of the
republic; they were convinced, in fact, that the Virgin,
accompanied by saints, protected their city. Siena was also
known as Vetusta Civitas Virginis, the Ancient City of the
Virgin. In 1308, Duccio was commissioned to create a high
altarpiece for the cathedral, a striped marble structure at
the apex of the city’s highest hill (see figs. 2.26-2.27).
Three years later the colossal altarpiece was finished, and
a contemporary description relates how it was carried in
triumphal procession to the cathedral:

At noontime on the ninth of June, with great devotions and
processions, with the bishop of Siena ... all of the clergy of
the Cathedral, and with all the monks and nuns of Siena, and
the Nove [the Council of Nine], with the city officials, the
Podesta and the Captain, and all the citizens with coats of
arms ... with much devotion ... ringing all the bells for joy ...
and throughout Siena they gave many alms to the poor
people, with many speeches and prayers to God and to his
mother, Madonna ever Virgin Mary, who helps, preserves,
and increases in peace the good state of the city of Siena and
its territory, as advocate and protectress of that city, and who
defends the city from all danger and all evil. And so this panel
was placed in the Cathedral on the high altar.

The altarpiece was not only a religious triumph for the
city, but also an artistic one for the painter. In 1506,
however, it was replaced by a fashionable new ciborium,
statues, and candlesticks, and when Vasari wrote his Lives
in 1550 he was not even able to discover its location.

Originally Duccio’s Virgin in Majesty — or simply the
Maestd in Italian — was an enormous, Gothic-pinnacled,
double-sided work (see figs. 4.5-4. 8); since the high altar
stood under the dome of the cathedral, the back of the
altarpiece was also visible. The central panel on the front
is dominated by the enthroned Virgin (fig. 4.2) adored by
saints and angels; immediately above is a row of bust-
length prophets.

The head of St. Catherine of Alexandria (fig. 4.3), at the
extreme left, demonstrates how Duccio replaced the
Byzantine demarcation of forms with a new, unified sense
of surface. Catherine’s somber gaze is characteristic of
Duccio’s figures, as is the Byzantine treatment of the eye so
that the white is continuous below the iris. His treatment
of the fabrics is refined: Catherine’s gold-embroidered
scarf seems translucent, and we sense the shape of her head
and see her hair through its flowing folds. Her mantle is
painted over gold, and the paint has been tooled away in a
pattern that suggests the sparkle of gold-thread damask.
The Christ Child, who gazes directly outward at the
observer, is a more natural, human baby than in earlier
Sienese altarpieces. In line with the artist’s decreasing
reliance on Byzantine motifs, gold striations appear only
here and there in the richly modeled drapery that courses
over the slender bodies.

The Nativity from the front predella (fig. 4.4) preserves
its original framing. Duccio kept the Byzantine cave, but
also inserted the French Gothic shed, a compromise symp-
tomatic of his artistic position, which draws upon both
traditions. Mary, enveloped in her bright blue mantle,
reclines on a scarlet mattress. Following Byzantine tradi-
tion, she pays no attention to the Christ Child in the
manger behind her. In the foreground, the Christ Child is

104

THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

Above: 4.2. DUCCIO. Detail of the Madonna and Child , from the
central front panel of the Maestd. 1308-11. Central front panel
^hole), 7 x 13' (2.13 x 3.96 m). Musco dell’Opera del Duomo,
Siena. Commissioned by the Opera del Duomo for the high altar
of Siena Cathedral.

The inscription includes Duccio’s only known signature: a Holy
Mother of God, be thou the cause of peace for Siena and, because
ae painted thee thus, of life for Duccio.” The altarpicce is recorded
as costing 3,000 florins.

The Sienese Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, like its Florentine counterpart
and others elsewhere, exhibits works of art that were once on or in
the city’s cathedral. It is located inside the vaults of what was once
tta ended to be the side aisle of a much expanded cathedral, a plan
that had to be aborted when the structure proved to be unstable.

4.3. DUCCIO. Head of St. Catherine, detail of fig. 4.5.

4.4. DUCCIO. Nativity
and Prophets Isaiah and
Ezekiel, from the front
nredella of the Maestd (see
hgs. 4. 5-4. 6). Tempera
on panels: Nativity ,
iPb x 17V2 m (44 x 45 cm);
Prophets , each I 7 V 4 x 6 V 2 "
44 x 16.5 cm). National
Gallery of Art, Washington,
D.C. (Mellon Collection).

SIENESE ART OF THE EARLY TRECENTO

I O 5

4.5. DUCCIO. Maesta . Conjectural reconstruction of the front, with predella, pinnacles,
and framing elements. Digitized reconstruction by Lew Minter.

It is possible that the predella needed to support such a huge altarpiece was so deep that
each end held a narrative scene, in which case the predella reconstruction shown here and
in figures 4.6-4. 8 would take a different form. The numbering sequence used for figures
4. 5-4.8 is based on the narrative sequence, starting with the infancy of Christ on the front
predella and finishing with the post-resurrection scenes on the back pinnacles, followed by
the scenes of the later life of the Virgin on the front pinnacles.

Below: 4.6. DUCCIO. Maesta.
Conjectural reconstruction of the
iconography of the narrative scenes
on the front.

central panel, Madonna and Child
with Saints and Angels (see figs.

4.2-4. 3).

FRONT PREDELLA (conjectural), narrative
scenes from the Infancy of Christ, flanked
by prophets: 1. Annunciation ; 2. Nativity
and Annunciation to the Shepherds (see
fig. 4.4); 3. Adoration of the Magi;

4. Presentation of Christ in the Temple;

5. Massacre of the Innocents; 6. Flight
into Egypt; 7. Christ Disputing with the
Doctors in the Temple.

FRONT NARRATIVE PINNACLES, Later Life of
the Virgin Mary: 49. Annunciation of the
Death of the Virgin; 50. Arrival of John
the Evangelist; 51. Farewell of the
Apostles; 52. Death of the Virgin;

53. Funeral of the Virgin; 54.
Entombment of the Virgin;

55. Assumption and Coronation of the
Virgin (conjectural, lost; reconstruction
based on later Sienese version).

Angel pinnacles (largely lost, but several
examples survive).

plunged by midwives into a chalicelike tub, as in Nicola
Pisano’s Pisa Baptistery pulpit (see fig. 2.20). Some of the
angels behind the cave look up toward heaven, while
others bend down; one waves a scroll announcing the
event to shepherds at the right. The brilliant colors of
Mary’s cloak and mattress contrast with softer colors, such
as the rose of Joseph’s cloak.

In the main front panel of the Maesta as we know it
today, Sienese saints kneel in the front row; more saints
and four archangels stand behind them, and four angels
rest their hands and chins on Mary’s inlaid marble throne
(figs. 4.5 — 4.6). In the resulting interlace of figures, heads,
and haloes — all united by the flow of drapery lines, orna-
mental patterns, and brilliant color — separate elements do
not stand out as they would in a composition by Giotto.

( 55 )

53 54

5 6

I06 * THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

Left: 4.7. DUCCIO. Maesta . Conjectural
reconstruction of the back, with predella,
pinnacles, and framing elements. Digitized
reconstruction by Lew Minter.

Right: 4.8. DUCCIO. Maesta . Conjectural reconstruction of
the iconography of the narrative scenes on the back.
back predella (conjectural), narrative scenes from the Life of
Christ: 8. Baptism of Christ (conjectural, lost); 9. First Temptation
of Christ (conjectural, lost); 10. Temptation of Christ in the
Temple; 11. Temptation of Christ on the Mountain (see fig. 4.9);

12. Calling of Peter and Andrew; 13. Marriage Feast at Cana;

14. Christ and the Woman of Samaria at the Well; 15. Christ Heals
the Blind Man; 16. Transfiguration; 17. Raising of Lazarus.

CENTER BACK, LOWER REGISTER, narrative scenes from the Life of
Christ: 18. Entry into Jerusalem (see fig. 4.10); 19. Last Supper,

20. Washing of the Feet; 21. Sermon to the Apostles and Judas
Receiving the Blood Money from the High Priests of the Temple ,
occurring simultaneously; 22. Agony in the Garden; 23. Kiss of
Judas; 24. Christ Before Annas and First Denial of Peter, occurring
simultaneously; 25. Christ Before Caiaphas and Second Denial of
Peter, occurring simultaneously; 26. Mocking of Christ and Third
Denial of Peter, occurring simultaneously; 27. Christ Before Pilate;
28. Pilate Declaring Chris fs Innocence to the Pharisees .

CENTER BACK, upper register, narrative scenes from the Passion
of Christ: 29. Christ before Herod; 30. Christ in the Robe Before
Pilate; 31. Flagellation; 32. Mocking of Christ, 33. Pilate Washing
his Hands; 34. Christ Carrying the Cross; 35. Crucifixion (see fig.
4.11); 36. Descent from the Cross; 37. Entombment of Christ; 38.

(48}

12 13

16 ,

Descent into Limbo; 39. Three Marys at the Tomb; 40. Noli Me
Tangere; 41. Journey to Emmaus.

BACK PINNACLES, post-resurrection narrative scenes: 42. Christ
Appears behind Closed Doors; 43. Incredulity of Thomas; 44.
Apparition to the Apostles at the Sea of Tiberias; 45. Apparition to
the Apostles on a Mountain in Galilee; 46. Apparition at Supper;
47. Pentecost; 48. Ascension of Christ (conjectural, lost).

SIENESE ART OF THE EARLY TRECENTO • IO 7

4.9. DUCCIO. Temptation of Christ on the Mountain, from the
back predella of the Maesta (see figs. 4. 7-4. 8). Panel, 17 x 1878"
(43 x 46 cm). Copyright The Frick Collection, New York.

Rather, the panel takes on the appearance of a rich and
splendid fabric. The later life of the Virgin was found on
the pinnacles, surmounted by bust-length angels (although
the central pinnacles, on both the front and back, have
never been found, and their subjects are unknown). The
panels on the predella at the base illustrated scenes from
the infancy of Christ. The back of the altarpiece offered a
series of scenes depicting the Passion of Christ (figs.
4.7— 4.8). Most parts of Duccio’s altarpiece remain in
Siena, but some of the predella panels are scattered in
other collections. A panel from the back predella (fig. 4.9)
shows how Satan tempted Christ by leading him up a high
mountain and offering him the kingdoms of the world.
Duccio represented the kingdoms as Italian city-states with
walls and gates surrounding public and religious buildings
with towers, domes, roof tiles, and battlements. The color-
ful architecture of those in the foreground is picked out
delicately in light, while the distant cities are darker, as
if lost in shadow. A sense of vast space is unexpectedly
created by the cities’ tiny scale. While we may feel that we
can enter the environments Giotto created for his narra-
tives (see fig. 3.6), we cannot penetrate the more complex
world of Duccio’s creation. Duccio’s rocks appear to surge
and twist, breaking upward toward the figures. On this
moving ground the figures cannot stand with the firmness
and decision of Giotto’s people; they maintain an uncertain
footing, as if walking on waves. In the drapery of Christ in
this scene, Duccio’s flowing line is transformed into
straight lines and sharp points that reinforce Christ’s

gesture and words: “Get thee behind me, Satan” (Luke
4:8). Duccio’s slender and somewhat sad Christ is utterly
different from the majestic, forthright Christ of Giotto.

On the back of the Maesta , Christ’s Passion is told in
twenty-four scenes, beginning with the Entry into
Jerusalem (fig. 4.10). The hilltop setting is similar to that
of Siena itself, and the scene seems to derive from a docu-
mented Sienese Palm Sunday procession in which the
bishop led a crowd to one of the city gates to meet an actor
garbed as Christ. Duccio placed us in a field separated
from the road by a wall with an open gate, over which
we watch the procession winding up toward the city gate.
People climb trees in an orchard on the other side of the

4.10. DUCCIO. Entry into Jerusalem, from the back of the Maesta
(see figs. 4.7-4. 8). Panel, 40 Vs x 2178" (102 x 56.5 cm). Museo
delPOpera del Duomo, Siena.

I08 * THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

4.11. DUCCIO. Crucifixion, from the
back of the Maesta (see figs. 4.7-4.8).
Panel, 40Vs x 29 7 /s" (102 x 76 cm).
Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Siena.

road, as in Byzantine representations of the scene. Some
onlookers spread their mantles before Christ, following the
Gospel account. Christ rides a donkey, fulfilling the
prophecy of Zachariah: “Behold, thy King cometh ...
lowly, and riding upon an ass” (9:9). The crowd surges out
of the gate, chattering and gesticulating, while the apostles
follow Christ. In these two human rivers about to meet we
experience a crowded medieval city. We look through the
gate into the main street, where we can see a balcony with
a head protruding through a window.

In the Crucifixion (fig. 4.11), on the other hand, Duccio
revealed his ability to create a scene of mass violence and
tragedy. All three crosses are shown and, following the
Gospels, the legs of the thieves have been broken to ease
their agony, while Christ’s legs were left intact, fulfilling a

prophecy that “a bone of him shall not be broken” (John
19:36). The slender crosses soar against the gold back-
ground, which shimmers with an effect that is airy and
atmospheric. Duccio distinguished the penitent thief,
turned toward Christ, from the unremorseful one, shown
facing away. Below, the crowds are separated into two
groups. As in the Meditations on the Life of Christ , a text
written by a Franciscan mystic living in Tuscany about
1300, Mary swoons below the cross, sinking into the arms
of the holy women as she looks up toward Christ, from
whose side blood and water gush in streams. Duccio’s
mastery of crowds and his ability to project human feeling
are shown in this scene, with its flashing eyes and gesticu-
lating hands. Despite all his subtle refinement, Duccio was
no less dramatic a narrative artist than Giotto.

SIENESE ART OF THE EARLY TRECENTO * IO9

Simone Martini

Like Giotto, Duccio had a number of pupils. Their works
suggest that he was a liberating teacher, for each pupil
developed a style independent of the master and of one
another. One of the most original was Simone Martini
(active 1315-1344), who most likely worked on Duccio’s
later commissions, including the Maesta. Shortly after
Duccio’s Maesta was completed, Simone was commis-

sioned to paint a Maesta of his own, a large fresco on the
end wall of the Council Chamber in Siena’s Palazzo Pub-
blico (figs. 4.12-4.13). From this vantage point, the Virgin
could watch over the deliberations of the Council of the
Sienese Republic or, to put it another way, the councillors
would have the Virgin Mary and saints constantly before
them to guide their behavior.

Simone unified the throng of saints and angels under a
spacious cloth canopy held by saints, similar to the ones

4.12. Mew of the Council Chamber in the Palazzo Pubblico, Siena (see fig. 1.9).

This panoramic view of the largest governmental chamber in Siena’s city hall demonstrates how such a room was progressively decorated over
timt:; Simone's Maesta (fig. 4.13) is only the earliest decoration visible here. The monochromatic frescoes above the arched openings to the left
w&rv painted in 1363 and 1480 to celebrate Sienese military victories. Frescoed figures of Sienese saints and local holy figures were painted
between the arches in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, while on the soffits of the arches we see details of the fifteenth-century decoration of
the adjacent chapel. On the wall opposite Simone’s Maesta was a circular world map ( mappamondo ) painted by Ambrogio Lorenzetti; almost
16 feet across^ it had Siena at its center and could be rotated on a central pivot to bring areas closer to the viewer.

XIO • THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

that shelter the Eucharist today when it is carried in pro-
cession through the streets of Italian towns. Some portions
of the fresco were painted a secco and have peeled off,
showing the underdrawing. A document of 1321 reveals
that Simone “repaired” certain sections of the fresco,
although a better word might be “updated,” as is sug-
gested by the different head styles evident in the work. In
the rear ranks of the Virgin’s attendants some Duccio-
inspired heads are still to be seen, their eyes almond-
shaped and their hair covered with mantles. The heads of
the Virgin and Child and of the two female saints that
flank them are painted on new patches of plaster and show
the more Gothic type characteristic of Simone’s later
works; they have broad, full cheeks, pursed mouths, and
wavy or curly blond hair.

Between the two campaigns of work on the Maesta ,
Simone had been invited to Naples by the French king,
Robert of Anjou. While there he painted a large dynastic
icon depicting the king kneeling, about to receive the
crown from his older brother, Louis (fig. 4.14), who was
canonized in 1317 as St. Louis of Toulouse. Motifs from
the family’s coat of arms decorate the frame, the back-
ground, and the garments. The frontal figure of the saint
had to be shifted to the left to make room for the kneeling
king. In this highly original composition Simone displayed
his ingenuity in handling boldly silhouetted areas and in
creating surface patterns that are even richer and more
delicate than those of Duccio. The large round brooch
(known as a morse) that holds together the saint’s cape is
made of glass decorated with the family arms, executed in

4.13. SIMONE MARTINI. Maesta. Between 1311 and 1317; repaired 1321. Fresco, 25' x 31 '9" (7.6 x 9.7 m). Council Chamber, Palazzo
Pubblico, Siena. Commissioned by the Commune of Siena.

The inscriptions on the steps of the throne urge the use of wisdom and justice, and in one case the Virgin speaks directly to the Sienese public
and the city's rulers: “The angels’ flowers ... that adorn the heavenly meadow, delight me no more than good counsel....”

From the beam in front of the Maesta hang two sculpted, polychromed arms, with openings in the hands, suggestive of angels descending from
heaven. These must have held ropes to support lamps that hung in front of the fresco. The lamps could thus be raised or lowered as needed.

SIENESE ART OF THE EARLY TRECENTO

III

4.14. SIMONE MARTINI. St Louis
of Toulouse Crowning Robert of Anjou,
King of Naples, and Scenes from the
Life of St. Louis of Toulouse, c. 1317.
Panel with gold and silver leaf, originally
embellished with gold work and precious
stones, 6'6 3 /4" x 4'6V4 n (2 x 1.38 m).
Museo di Capodimonte, Naples.
Commissioned by Robert of Anjou.

paint and gold leaf. Attached to the surface of the panel,
this decoration originally also included precious gems,
now lost. The richly embossed surface patterns are never
permitted to compete with the basic element in Simone’s
mature style — a taut, linear contour, almost as if the shapes
were cut from sheet metal.

While the face of St. Louis resembles the standardized
head type used by Simone in other works, King Robert’s
features are an early example of the portraiture that will
become so important during the Early Renaissance. The

silhouette is perhaps the simplest way to capture an indi-
vidual, as we have already seen in Giotto’s portrait of
Enrico Scrovegni (see fig. 3.14). In this case, the contrast
between the face of the placid, enthroned saint and the
vigorous, individualized physiognomy of his brother is
start-ling. Simone clearly fulfilled the need of his royal
patron to be recognized.

In his frescoes in the St. Martin Chapel in San Francesco
in Assisi (fig. 4.15), Simone demonstrated his narrative
ability, sophisticated use of color, and decorative talents.

I I 2 * THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

4.15. SIMONE MARTINI. Fresco cycle. Between 1312 and 1319 (?). St. Martin Chapel, Lower Church of S. Francesco, Assisi.
Commissioned by Cardinal Gentile Partino da Montefiore dell’Aso. Scenes shown here are: The Mass of St. Martin , The Miracle of Fire, The
Knighting of St. Martin, St. Martin in the Imperial Camp, and, in the entrance arch, Sts. Mary Magdalen and Catherine of Alexandria. Not
v isiblc here is the portrait of the donor kneeling before St. Martin on the inner surface of the entrance arch.

SIENESE ART OF THE EARLY TRECENTO • LL 3

4.16. SIMONE MARTINI. Dream of St. Martin. Fresco, 8 '8" x 6'7" (2.65 x 2 m).
St. Martin Chapel, Lower Church of S. Francesco, Assisi.

In the Dream of St. Martin (fig. 4.16), an aloof and
princely Christ appears to the saint, who is in a deep sleep
under a rose and blue plaid silk coverlet heightened by
gold threads. The simple architecture isolates the sleeping
saint, while the details of bed hangings and chest add an
element of authenticity. The expressiveness of the faces is
typical of Simone’s style. We sense in these frescoes the
impact of the works of Giotto in the scale of the figures
relative to the architecture and in the simple way in which
the narrative is clarified; in Simone’s panel paintings, on
the other hand, adherence to many of the stylistic princi-
ples espoused by Duccio is maintained.

Simone’s Annunciation (fig. 4.17) was painted for Siena
Cathedral in 1333. He signed it jointly with his brother-in-
law Lippo Memmi. This signature and the joint payments
for the work attest to their collaboration, but it is not
clear what role Lippo played in the execution of the
artwork. This is the earliest known example in which
the Annunciation was the subject of an entire altarpiece.
The gold background is traversed by raised gesso
(pastiglia) words in beautiful Gothic lettering that stretch
from Gabriel’s mouth to Mary’s ear: Ave gratia plena
dominus tecum , “Hail, thou that art highly favored,
the Lord is with thee” (Luke 1:28). The elaborate frame

r i 4

THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

4.17. SIMONE MARTINI and LIPPO MEM MI. Annunciation with Two Saints. 1333. Panel, 10' x 8 '9" (3 x 2.67 m). Uffizi Gallery,
Florence. Commissioned by the Opera del Duomo for the Cathedral of Siena.

An analysis of prices, undertaken by the scholar Hayden Maginnis, has revealed that the cost of this altarpiece was about equal to that
Of a fine house.

IS not original, and the different floor design and
angle of view between side panels and center suggest
that the saints were not originally placed flanking
the Annunciation .

As in Giotto’s fresco (see figs. 3. 8-3. 9) the heavenly mes-
senger kneels, but here the breathless suddenness of his
arrival is indicated by the cloak that floats behind him. The
i lrgin shrinks back sharply at the news, following the
Gospel account that she was disturbed by the angel’s
appearance and salutation. The violence of her movement
increases the explosive immediacy of the scene. The sharp,
cant curves of her body contrast with the more three-

dimensional figure of the angel, who is crowned with olive
leaves and holds an olive branch, symbol of peace. In the
center of the richly veined marble floor is a vase of lilies,
symbol of Mary’s purity! The lilies, the olive leaves, the
curves of the drapery, and even the features of Mary and
Gabriel display the same sharp, metallic quality seen in
Simone’s St. Louis of Toulouse, Mary’s suspicion,
conveyed broadly in her pose, is accentuated by the sharp
lines of her furrowed brow and pursed lips. Glittering
sunburst shapes incised in the gold background burst
out around the tooled haloes, adding to the bristling
tension of the scene.

SIENESE ART OF THE EARLY TRECENTO • I Iy'

4.18. SIMONE MARTINI. The Blessed Agostino Novello and
Four of bis Miracles, c. 1324. Panel, 6'6" x 8'5" (2 x 2.7 m).
Pinacoteca, Siena.

Simone revealed his skill as a narrator in the altarpiece
representing the Blessed Agostino Novello with scenes of
his miracles (fig. 4.18). That the altarpiece should follow
the pattern of Bonaventura Berlinghieri’s St. Francis (see
fig. 2.6) and other Duecento images may have been
requested by the unknown patron, but Simone trans-
formed the stiff pose of his prototypes into a gently
swaying one. Agostino is seen among the trees of a forest,
seemingly lost in meditation, while an angel whispers in his
ear. The stubble on the monk’s face is a realistic detail rare
at this time, while the book he holds may be symbolic of
the legal learning for which Novello, briefly prior general
of the Augustinian Order, was respected. The lateral scenes
represent posthumous miraculous appearances, in which
he heals a boy attacked by a wolf (top left) and restores to
life a traveler thrown from his horse (top right) and a baby
fallen from a broken hammock (lower right). In the lower
left scene, Novello grabs a board dislodged from a balcony
and then revives a child who has fallen. Wood-grained

4.19. SIMONE MARTINI. Way to Calvary, c. 1340-44. Panel,
9 7 /s x 6 3 / 4 " (25 x 17 cm). The Louvre, Paris. Originally part of a
small folding devotional work commissioned by an Orsini cardinal.

Il6 • THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

balconies, nail-studded doors, and views into staircase
halls recapture the Siena of Simone’s day. Agostino Novella
was beatified but never achieved sainthood; perhaps this
altarpiece, with its four miracles, was part of an effort to
convince the authorities that he deserved canonization.

Simone’s last years were spent in Avignon, a Provencal
city then the seat of the papacy. His followers left a number
of works from this period, but only a few by Simone
remain, including a series of panels from a folding devo-
tional work representing the Passion. The most dramatic
of these panels is the Way to Calvary (fig. 4.19). In this tiny
work painted in France, where we might expect a renewed
influence of the French Gothic style, Simone’s elegance is
replaced by an interest in immediate and even violent
action. Christ, led forth from a very Sienese Jerusalem, is

almost overwhelmed by the mob, which includes loving
friends, grieving apostles, and mocking Romans and
Hebrews, as well as two irreverent children. To support
this new interest in passionate drama, Simone’s delicate
color has given way to a fierce brilliance centering on the
scarlet robe of Christ. The small scale of the panel gives the
scene a special immediacy. Perhaps the emphasis on drama
here can be related to the devotional practices of the
patron, a still-unidentified Orsini cardinal.

The dramatic intensity seen in Simone’s later work
had an impact on his followers, as is evident in the New
Testament cycle painted on the right side-aisle wall of the
church known as the Collegiata in San Gimignano, a hill
town near Siena (fig. 4.20; the cycle is paired with an
unusual cycle of scenes drawn from the Old Testament on

4.20. View of the side aisle wall of the Collegiate Church, San Gimignano, with New Testament frescoes by the workshop or followers of
SIMONE MARTINI. 1330s or 1340s. The Pact of Judas (see fig. 4.21) is visible far right; The Betrayal (see fig. 4.22) is partially visible to
the left of the first column. The frescoes of the New Testament cycle here were attributed by Vasari to Barna da Siena, but current opinion
finds the hands of three or four distinct painters working on the cycle as collaborators.

\RT OF THE EARLY TRECENTO * 11 7

the Collegiata’s left side-aisle wall). Among the scenes is a
frightening representation of The Pact of Judas (fig. 4.21),
showing the moment when the high priests give Judas
thirty pieces of silver to betray Christ. While the composi-
tion recalls earlier renderings of this subject, including that
on Duccio's Maesta , here the incident is converted into a
transaction between sinister characters drawn together so
that their heads form a human arch. The perspective of the
architecture seems to pull us into the scene, suggesting our
guilty complicity in the betrayal.

In all the Passion scenes Christ is alone, but never more
so than in The Betrayal (fig. 4.22). Peter’s attack on
Malchus, when he cuts off the servant’s ear, fills one-third
of the scene. The artist represented the cowardice of the
other apostles, who leave Christ to his fate. Even St. John
gathers his cloak about him and darts a look of terror over
his shoulder as he hurries away. Christ seems to have been
abandoned to an avalanche of steel. His quiet face resists
Judas’ glare even as he is cut off from the rest of the world.
Although the derivation from Simone is evident, this
painter, or group of painters, offers an individualized and
pessimistic view of human behavior that is unforgettable.

4.21. Workshop or followers of SIMONE
MARTINI. The Pact of Judas. 1330s or 1340s.
Fresco, 8'6" x 7'9" (2.6 x 2.4 m). Collegiate
Church, San Gimignano.

4.22. Workshop or followers of SIMONE
MARTINI. The Betrayal. 1330s or 1340s.
Fresco, 8'6" x 7'9" (2.6 x 2.4 m). Collegiate
Church, San Gimignano.

i i 8

THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

Pietro Lorenzetti

Simone’s chief competitors in Siena were the brothers
Pietro (c. 1290-1348?) and Ambrogio (d. 1348?) Loren-
zetti. That two brothers would be successful painters
might seem contrary to the modern notion of the artist as
an individual genius, but in Siena and elsewhere during
the later Middle Ages and the Renaissance a trade would
often be practiced by families who would pass their
workshop, tools, and expertise down to their children
and grandchildren.

The style of the Lorenzetti brothers dominated Sienese
painting after Simone’s departure for France. Although the
brothers almost always worked and signed their paintings
independently, they show an affinity of style that is distinct
from both the lingering Byzantinizing of the Duccio School
and the Francophile elegance of Simone. Pietro’s earliest
known work, the polyptych still on the high altar of a
Romanesque church in Arezzo (fig. 4.23), reveals a mature
artist. In the central panel, the Christ Child looks upward
at his mother with a happy gaze that is answered by a look
of foreboding, typical of the intensity that characterizes

4.23. PIETRO LORENZETTI. Madonna and Child with Saints , Annunciation , and Assumption. 1320. Panel, 9 , 9 1 /i " x 10'lV2"

(3 x 3.1 m). i! Pieve di Sta. Maria, Arezzo. Commissioned by Bishop Guido Tarlati.

The contract for the altarpiece stated that Pietro could undertake no other work until he had completed this, and that he would be paid in thirds,
at the beginning, middle, and end. The altarpiece was reduced in size at a later date; some of the panels were trimmed and the predella removed.

SIENESE ART OF THE EARLY TRECENTO

II 9

4.24. View of the Lower Church of S. Francesco, Assisi. Frescoes, largely 1320s-30s.

This panoramic view was taken from the apse area looking back toward the nave. To either side we see two scenes of the Crucifixion (the one
on the left by the school of Giotto, the one on the right by Pietro Lorenzetti), w r hich match the paired Crucifixion scenes by Cimabuc in the
Upper Church directly above; one of these is illustrated in fig. 2.13. A portion of Pietro’s Descent from the Cross (see fig. 4.25) is visible to the
far right. Also by Cimabuc here is the fresco of the Madonna and Child with Angels and St. Francis seen to the left of the nave (c. 1288-92).
This w r as later surrounded by the school of Giotto frescoes. The frescoes in the cross vault over the high altar represent allegories of the
Franciscan virtues of Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience, and St. Francis in Glory; these are by a follower of Giotto. The entrance to the tomb
of St. Francis is in the nave of the lower church.

Pietro's art. The saints in the lateral panels turn toward
each other as if in conversation even as they look out ques-
tion mgly toward the observer. Pietro must have visited
Florence, for the Gothicism and humanity of his art, not to
mention tire clear-cut features, strong hands, and ample

proportions of his figures, reveal a knowledge of the art of
Giotto and his followers. Compared with the monumental
figures in the Giottesque tradition though, Pietro’s figures
are less massive. And, in contrast to the works of Giotto,
there is an emphasis on the richness of patterned fabrics:

12 0 *

THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

the Virgin, for example, wears a tunic and cloak of white
patterned silk, the cloak lined with ermine.

The extent of Pietro’s participation in the Passion cycle
in the Lower Church of San Francesco at Assisi, as well as
the date of the series, remains in doubt. His authorship of
the Descent from the Cross (figs. 4.24^.25), however, is
beyond question, as is revealed by its dramatic power and
bold originality of composition. To accommodate the
scene in the limited field available, the upper bar of the
cross is truncated, leaving the long horizontal of the cross-

bar against a background that, on the right, is expressively
vacant. The gaunt body of Christ, the effects of rigor
mortis indicated in its harsh lines and angles, is lowered by
his friends. Joseph of Arimathea holds the torso while St.
John embraces the legs, pressing his cheek to one thigh.
Nicodemus, holding an immense pair of tongs, attempts to
withdraw the spike from one pierced foot while Mary
Magdalen prostrates herself to kiss the other. Mary, the
wife of Clopas, holds Christ’s right hand, and the Virgin
presses his head to her cheek in a way that unites the two

4.25. PIETRO LORENZETTI
and assistants. Frescoes of the
Descent into Limbo (partial view)
and Descent from the Cross.
1320s-30s. Width at base 12 , 4"
(3.76 m). Lower Church of
S. Francesco, Assisi.

That Pietro worked quickly is
revealed by the giomate; the eight
figures of the Descent from the
Cross shown here, for example,
were painted in only six days.

SIENESE ART OF THE EARLY TRECENTO * 121

4.26. PIETRO LORENZETTI. Birth of the Virgin. 1335-42.
Panel, S'lVi" x 5 TIV 2 " (1.87 x 1.82 m). Museo delPOpera del
Duomo, Siena. Commissioned by the Opera del Duomo for the
Cathedral of Siena. The documented pair of saints that flanked
this altarpiece is lost.

heads, one right side up, the other upside down. The broad,
columnar masses of the figures reflect the impact of Giotto’s
style; as usual with the Sienese painters, the Florentine
painter’s influence is more readily seen in their frescoes.

In 1342 Pietro completed the Birth of the Virgin (fig.
4.26) as his contribution to the cycle of altarpieces devoted
to narrative scenes from the life of the Virgin Mary for the
Cathedral of Siena. This triptych, perhaps in competition
with one by his brother Ambrogio (see fig. 4.28), estab-
lished a new standard in the definition of space. The archi-
tectural elements of the frame serve as the most forward
elements of the painted architecture within the image. The
Italian policy of removing all later interventions and
restorations has left us with no outer edges, no pinnacles,
and no colonnettes to support the arches, which somewhat
diminishes the effect of spatiality. Nevertheless, this aston-
ishing bit of illusion creates the feeling that we could enter
the room where St. Anne lies on her bed with its checkered
Sienese spread as her baby is bathed and neighbors arrive
bearing gifts. One woman holds a striped fan to cool St.
Anne (the Virgin’s birthday was traditionally celebrated on
September 8, still the hot season in Tuscany). In the
antechamber on the left, St. Joachim receives the good
news. Behind him we look into a space that might belong
to some ecclesiastical building — a towering Gothic struc-
ture of at least three stories, the upper one cut off by the
vault of the antechamber. This tall structure must be a
reference to the temple in which Mary would be presented
three years later.

Pietro’s triptych is the first of a series of Italian paintings
that presents the illusionistic space of the picture as an
inward extension of the frame (for a much later example,
see fig. 15.41). In his perspective formulation, Pietro at
times came close to the one-point perspective system that
ruled pictorial art during the Quattrocento. Analysis
shows, however, that the floors in the side panels have sep-
arate vanishing points that do not correspond to the one
used for the vaults. Nonetheless, the works of the Sienese
Trecento painters reveal an interest in exploring how space
can be rationally analyzed and represented — an investiga-
tion that will culminate in the following century.

Ambrogio Lorenzetti

Ambrogio Lorenzetti, like his brother, demonstrates the
impact of Florentine art. He seems to have visited Florence
on at least two occasions: in 1319, when he painted a
Madonna for a church outside Florence, and in 1332-34,
when he painted a polyptych for the Church of San
Procolo. During the later visit he joined the Florentine
branch of the Arte dei Medici e Speziali, possibly because
Florence was part of a “foreign” state and guild member-
ship was required to work there.

In 1342, both Pietro and Ambrogio completed altar-
pieces for the narrative series on the life of the Virgin for
the Sienese Duomo. Ambrogio’s Presentation in the
Temple (fig. 4.27) is even more revolutionary than that of
Pietro’s Birth of the Virgin ; space is here penetrated in a

122 * THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

4,27. AMBROGIO L.ORENZKTTL Presentation in the Temple. 1342. Panel* x 5*6 Vft" (2,6 x 1,7 m), Uffizi Gallery, Florence.

Commissioned by the Opera del Duomo for the Cathedral of Siena. The documented pair of saints that flanked this altarpiece is lost.

SIENESE ART OF THE EARLY TRECENTO * r 2 3

manner unprecedented since Roman antiquity. The Gothic
frame establishes a lofty gateway, through which we
glimpse an interior where the light is dimmed by a stained-
glass window. While Ambrogio maintained the double
scale of medieval art — one size for figures, another for
setting — here he reduced the figures so as to make the
architecture somewhat more credible. Slender columns
uphold the vaults, which are decorated with gold stars.
Behind the altar we look into the dimness of the sanctuary,
with its marble columns and gilded capitals, and, for
perhaps the first time in any Italian painting, we sense the
immensity of a cathedral interior.

The architecture is a strange amalgam of Romanesque
and Gothic. In the late Middle Ages, Romanesque archi-
tecture was considered to be of Eastern origin, so that
the Temple in Jerusalem was generally represented with

Romanesque round arches rather than Gothic pointed
ones. Also, the polygonal building we see in the back-
grounds of such Trecento paintings as Duccio’s Entry into
Jerusalem (see fig. 4.10), which is always intended to rep-
resent the Temple, is based on descriptions of the Dome of
the Rock brought back by crusaders. In Ambrogio’s
picture, we see beyond the facade to a polygonal dome
with Gothic windows.

Ambrogio has precisely illustrated the Gospel text (Luke
2:22-38), which includes a reference to the offering of two
turtle doves, seen here on the altar. The aged Simeon, who
had been told that he would not die until he had seen the
Messiah, holds the Christ Child and murmurs the words of
the Nunc Dimittis : “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant
depart in peace, according to thy word: For mine eyes have
seen thy salvation, Which thou hast prepared before the

4.28. AMBROGIO LORENZETTI. Allegory of Good Government: Effects of Good Government in the City and the Country (portion).
1338-39. Fresco; size of the room, approx. 46' X 25'3" (14 x 7.7 m). Sala delJa Pace (Room of Peace), Palazzo Pubblico, Siena. Presumably
commissioned by the Commune of Siena. This room is also sometimes called the Sala dei Nove (Room of the Nine) because this was the
council room for the Nine.

124 • THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

face of all people; A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the
glory of thy people Israel” (Luke 2:29-32).

At the left stand Joseph, Mary, and two attendants; on
the right the eighty-four-year-old prophetess Anna holds a
scroll with the last verse of the passage from St. Luke:
“And she coming in that instant gave thanks likewise unto
the Lord, and spake of him to all them that looked for
redemption in Jerusalem.” Ambrogio depicted differences
in age and feelings, from the Christ Child blissfully sucking
his thumb and the gentle pride of his mother to the
wrinkled age of the prophetess Anna and the weariness of
Simeon, who will now be released from the burden
of life. The artist’s interest in representing the details of
everyday life encompasses even the gold-filigree earrings
worn by the Virgin Mary, who has, perhaps surprisingly,
pierced ears. No examples of such earrings survive; only
Ambrogio’s interest in the artifacts of daily life document
their appearance.

Ambrogio’s most revolutionary achievement — one of
the most remarkable accomplishments of the period — is
the fresco series that lines three walls of the room in the
Palazzo Pubblico where Siena’s chief magistrates, the Nine,
held their meetings (fig. 4.28). Ambrogio’s task was

unprecedented, for he was apparently called upon to paint
allegorical depictions of good and bad government —
subjects of intense significance to medieval Italian
communes — and to represent the effects such regimes
would have in both town and country. The result is the
first panoramic city and countryscape since antiquity, and
the first expansive portrait of an actual city and landscape.
Today, the cycle is usually identified as Good and Bad
Government , but in 1427 St. Bernardino of Siena referred
to it as War and Peace , perhaps in part because of its loca-
tion in the Sala della Pace (Room of Peace). Ambrogio
chose the best-illuminated walls for Good Government
and its effects, leaving Bad Government in the shadows
on a wall that has suffered considerable damage; the
difference in condition suggests that perhaps Bad Govern-
ment was attacked by individuals because of its subject.

The compositions flow in a relaxed manner, without set
geometric relationships, much like the irregular city plan of
Siena itself (see Map IV, p. 15). On one wall Ambrogio
enthroned the majestic figure of the Commune of Siena,
who holds the orb and scepter and is dressed in the com-
munal colors of black and white. He is guided by Faith,
Hope, and Charity, who soar above him (fig. 4.29).

4.29. AMBROGIO LORENZETTI. Allegory of Good Government (see fig. 4.28).

SIENESE ART OF THE EARLY TRECENTO • 125

On either side other virtues, chosen for their civic signifi-
cance, sit or lounge on a decorated bench. To the left,
Justice, above whose head floats Wisdom, dispenses
rewards and punishments through the two winged figures
of Commutative Justice, shown giving arms to a noble and
money to a merchant, and Distributive Justice, who
crowns a kneeling figure with her left hand as she lops off
the head of another with her right. Below the throne of
Justice, a figure representing Concord presides over the
twenty-four magistrates of the Sienese Republic, one of
whom grips a cord that extends from Justice and Concord
back to the scepter held by the personification of the
Commune; in this physical way the local governors are
united to the virtues that should guide them. The reclining
figure of Peace is taken from a Roman sarcophagus frag-
ment still in Siena, but Ambrogio’s reinterpretation of
ancient pleated drapery is so medieval in style that one
would hardly suspect a classical prototype if the original
had not survived. Peace reclines on armor, indicating that
she has overcome wan

The amazing panorama of Good Government in the
City and the Country (fig. 4.30) is a delightful continuous

vista. We are taken through the streets, alleys, and squares
of Siena (much as it stands today), over the city walls, and
out into the Tuscan countryside. To show us as much as
possible, Ambrogio, still a medieval painter, constantly
shifted his viewpoint. His world encompasses buildings,
people, trees, hills, farms, waterways, bridges, animals,
and birds.

In some areas, Ambrogio was almost able to abandon
the medieval double scale discussed previously (see p. 80).
Most of the buildings are still small in relation to the
people, however, for if Ambrogio had painted the people
and animals throughout in scale to the architecture, they
would hardly have been visible in so vast a worldscape. He
boldly represented what seems to be the entire city of
Siena, even showing us beams outside windows for
hanging clothing or providing leverage to haul things up
from the street. He included people conversing, entering
houses, or cut off from our view as they pass behind build-
ings. Through the arches of the building in the foreground,
we can enter a shop displaying shoes and hosiery, a school,
and a tavern with flasks of wine on an outdoor bar. We
also see a house in the process of construction; the

126 * THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

4 . 30 . AMBROGIO LORENZETTI. Allegoiy of Good Government in the City and the Country (see fig. 4.28).

workmen, standing on scaffolding they had probably put
i place the day before, are carrying building materials in
baskets on their heads and laying new courses of masonry.
V young woman plays a tambourine and sings while her
elegantly dressed companions dance in the street. Farmers
arn^e from the prosperous countryside leading donkeys,
driving herds of sheep, and carrying produce in baskets on
dieir heads. All have come through a city gate — probably
rhe recently completed Porta Romana. The city wall
.gzags from the lower border to the gate, which is sur-
mounted by a representation of the wolf with Romulus
and Remus, a Sienese symbol still found throughout the
city. Its presence is based on the citizens’ belief that Siena
was founded by — and named for — Sen us, a son of Remus.

The pastoral section is equally daring. Ambrogio seems
tc> have included Sienese territory as far as the sea at Tala-
BftOne, Siena’s new port, in order to display the prosperity
■r the republic. Vines are tended while grain is harvested
isnd threshed. As the peasants, conversing happily, bring
thear produce and their animals (including a black-and-
white hog, a felicitous reference to Siena’s coat of arms) up
the incline into the city, men and women descend into the

country to go hawking. These aristocrats indulge in this
sport only where the fields have already been harvested, so
as not to damage the crops.

Presiding over these activities is the figure of Securitas in
revealing classicizing garb (fig. 4.31). She holds a gallows
and a scroll: “Without fear, let each man fireelv walk, and
working let everyone sow, while such a commune this
personage will keep under her rule because she has
removed all power from the guilty.” Her hideous counter-
part on the opposite wall is Fear, who can be banished only
by Good Government.

Our eyes follow the vista over hill after towered hill,
farm after farm, the spectacle terminating against the
traditional unmodulated blue of the wall itself at the
horizon (the first sky with clouds did not appear in Italian
painting until the 1420s; see figs. 8.4, 8.9). Ambrogio’s
landscape is, during the summer months, strikingly similar
to the vista visible outside the window of the Sala della
Pace. As the landscape recedes, Ambrogio represented
details of plants and stubble with a few sketchy strokes, a
kind of shorthand that was not more fully explored until
the Quattrocento.

SIENESE ART OF THE EARLY TRECENTO

12 /

4.31. Securitas and Sienese landscape; detail of fig. 4.30.

Orvieto Cathedral

The vast cathedral erected in Orvieto beginning in 1290
(fig. 4.32) was intended to enshrine an important relic, the
bloodstained cloth from the miracle at Bolsena (for the
story of this miracle, which was later represented in a
fresco by Raphael, see fig. 17.52). In 1263 this relic was
transferred to Orvieto, where it was presented to Pope
Urban IV. In the following year he proclaimed the Feast of
Corpus Christi from this Umbrian hill town.

The cornerstone of the cathedral was laid in 1290, but
the facade as we see it today, with its carved marble panels,

bronze sculptures, and mosaics, seems largely to have been
the conception of the Sienese architect and sculptor
Lorenzo Maitani, who was named capomaestro in 1310; a
drawing of the design has been attributed to him. He is
generally also credited with the impressive bronze figures
of the Madonna and Child, angels, and symbols of the
Evangelists in Gothic style above the doors, and for much
of the finest carving on panels flanking the portals. We
know little about Maitani except for the dates of his
marriage in 1302 and death in 1330.

The bloody cloth that was to be the focus for worship in
Orvieto was enshrined in a magnificent two-sided

128 • THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

nft*, ir»

iffiasros!

mmm.

j|ftiliiii**fg

^*wS3?

4.32. LORENZO MAITANI. Orvieto Cathedral, facade. 1310-1456. Stone, bronze sculpture, and mosaics; each of the still unfinished stone
reliefs flanking the doors is more than 30' (9 m) high.

Early documents state that the cathedral should be modeled on the Early Christian Basilica of Sta. Maria Maggiore in Rome, which may
explain the mosaics that decorate the upper parts of the facade. A surviving drawing for the facade and extensive documentation support the
attribution of the facade design and much of the sculpture to Maitani, as head of what must have been a large workshop between 1310 and
1330. The decision to build a new cathedral had been made in 1284 and the foundation stone was laid in 1290 but the facade design as we
see it today dates from after Maitani became capomaestro in 1310; the lower part was complete by 1330 but some of the upper areas were not
completed until the mid-fifteenth century, and the mosaics have been restored many times. The bronze doors were added in the twentieth century.

SIENESE ART OF THE EARLY TRECENTO * I 29

4.33. UGOLINO DI VERIO
and collaborators. Reliquary of
the Santo Corporale. 1337-38.
Translucent enamel on silver with
gilded silver statuettes; height 4'7"
(1.4 m). Cathedral, Orvieto.

Here we show the back of the
reliquary because the scenes are in
better condition than those on the
front, which have lost some of
their enamel color. The front and
back are virtually identical, except
here we see the back of the
Crucifix at the apex, and the
backs of the angels and other
figures on the pinnacles.
Commissioned by Bishop Tramo
Monaldeschi and the Canons of
Orvieto Cathedral, the total cost
was 1,374V2 gold florins.

reliquary with a gabled shape intended as a reference to the
facade of the cathedral, thereby creating an identification
between the two (fig. 4.33). The reliquary is adorned with
scenes from the miracle of Bolsena and the life of Christ in
colorful enamel. The artists are identified on the inscrip-
tion as the Sienese goldsmith Ugolino di Verio (died c.
1380-85) and several unnamed collaborators. The relic
could be removed, and since 1338 both relic and its con-
tainer have been carried in procession through Orvieto on
the feast day of Corpus Christi. For the scenes from the life
of Christ, Ugolino followed the representations on Duccio’s
Maesta\ for the new scenes representing the miracle at
Bolsena, Ugolino drew inspiration from compositions by

Ambrogio Lorenzetti. Perhaps such stylistic connections
were requested by the patrons, or they may indicate
Ugolino’s respect for the traditions of his native Siena. The
sumptuous and colorful materials of both reliquary and
cathedral facade are an important indication of Gothic taste.

One of the cathedral documents reveals that Maitani’s
responsibilities included the “wall figured with beauty,
which wall must be made on the front part,” a reference to
the reliefs flanking the doors on the facade. The leading
position he holds in the documents has caused him to be
identified with the most gifted of the sculptors at work on
the panels. The reliefs represent the story of Adam and Eve
(figs. 4.34 — 4.35 ), the life of Christ, the Tree of Jesse, and

13 O * THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

4.34. LORENZO MAITANI. Scenes from Genesis, c. 1310— before 1316. Marble, m Orvicto Cathedral facade.

SIENESE ART OF THE EARLY TRECENTO • 13 I

4.35. LORENZO MATTANI. Creation of the Birds and Fishes, detail oi Scenes from Genesis (see fig. 4.34),

the Last Judgment (fig. 4,36). The first and last reliefs
display the vision of an artist who could create imaged of
exquisite poetry or utmost horror. Maitam and his collab-
orators dispensed with t h e e u s t o m a ry fi: a m e f o r s uch r el i e f s
and composed the scenes in horizontal strips with closely
packed figures. In contrast to fresco, the work proceeded
from the bottom up. In the second row a change occurs: in
the center of each relief sprouts a huge vine, its tendrils
forming frames for the scenes. In the two central panels the
vine .is an acanthus, as in Roman medieval apse mosaics,
and the scrolls curl tightly. The branches of the vines in the
right and left panels are more widely separated, leaving
airy spaces above and around the figures. On the left, the
vine is ivy; on the right it is a grapevine, recalling the
miracle of Bo I sen a celebrated at this cathedral.

The Creation scenes are imaginative. In the lower left
corner, God moves with grace across the primal rocks.

calling the fish to life in swirls of marble water and the
birds to attention in miniature forests (see fig. 4.35).
Maitani — if indeed this was he — took a tremendous step in
a direction not to be fully exploited until Donatello and
Ghiberti (see figs. 7, 14, 10.14): by lowering the projection
of distant figures and birds to a fraction of an inch above
the background clcmeuts 3 in contrast to the almost free-
standing, heavily undercut foreground figures, he was able
to suggest effects of distance within the limited field of
relief sculpture.

The airy movements and diaphanous mantle of God the
Creator moving among his works, hardly prepare us for
the shock of Madam's view of hell. Here, barely above eve
level (see fig. 4.36), the tormented figure of one of the
damned hangs by his arm from the jaws of a demon. This
dramatic imagery and expressive power characterize the
best of Trecento art.

X 3 2

THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

4.36. LORENZO MAITANI. Detail of the Damned in Hell from the Last Judgment, c. 1310-30. Marble, m Orvieto Cathedral facade.

SIENESE ART OF THE EARLY TRECENTO *

The Master of the Triumph
of Death

Another work to be discussed at this point, even if its
author may not be Sienese, is the panoramic series of fres-
coes on the theme of the Last Judgment and the Triumph
of Death in the Camposanto in Pisa (fig. 4.37). In earlier
scholarship, these works were dated after the outbreak of
the plague in 1348, but more recent scholarship has
demonstrated that they are from the 1330s. The anony-
mous artist, known as the Master of the Triumph of Death
after the most memorable of these frescoes, reveals an
understanding of both Florentine and Sienese innovations
of the period.

The enclosed cemetery next to Pisa Cathedral is known
as the Camposanto (holy field) because it contained earth
brought from the Holy Land. The walls of the inner court-

yard were once frescoed with vast panoramas from the Old
and New Testament, the lives of saints, and sacred history,
most of which were lost when an incendiary bomb burned
the roof during World War II. One fortunate survivor was
the cycle by the Master of the Triumph of Death. When
these frescoes were detached for preservation, their sinopie
were discovered.

The Three Living and the Three Dead are found at the
far left. While hunting, three splendidly dressed noblemen,
accompanied by friends and attendants, come upon three
open coffins, each occupied by a corpse; one is still
bloated, the next half-rotted, the third reduced to a skele-
ton. Worms and serpents play over all three. One of the
noblemen holds his nose at the stench, while horses and
hunting dogs draw back in disgust. No obscure text is
needed to explain the meaning of this scene, while its
placement in a cemetery adds to its immediate impact. The
same point is made again near the mid-point of the long

134 * THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

4.37. MASTER OF THE TRIUMPH OF DEATH. The Three Living and the Three Dead , The Triumph of Death, The Last Judgment, and
Hell. 1330s(?). Fresco, 18 '6" x 49’2" (5.6 x 15 m). Camposanto, Pisa.

The black and white photograph reproduced here was taken before the frescoes were damaged during World War II and subsequently detached
from the wall.

wall, where young men and women sit in a garden playing
music and caressing pets and each other, oblivious to the
approach of Death, a terrifying white-haired hag who flies
toward them on bat wings brandishing the huge scythe
with which she will cut them down.

In the center of this left section is a heap of Death’s most
recent victims, all of whom are richly dressed, while above
them demons carry off their souls or angels protect them.
The soul of one monk is in dispute, for it is being pulled in
opposite directions by an angel and a demon. Perhaps the
most poignant detail is the pathetic band of cripples next
to the pile of corpses, who hold a scroll on which they beg
Death to take them instead of the pleasure-seekers to the

right. The possibility of escape from Death is offered in the
scene above the coffins, where hermits read, work, and
contemplate, fed by milk furnished by a neighboring doe.

In the Last Judgment , Christ and Mary are side-by-side
in twin mandorlas. While Christ uses his left hand to
display the wound in his side, Mary shrinks back in fear. A
tempest of emotion seems to sweep through both the
damned, who are being expelled by archangels armed with
huge swords, and the blessed. The dead arise from square
tombs while an expansive representation of hell to the
right completes the program. The fresco as a whole
reminds us of how art functioned in a culture and society
distinctly different from our own.

SIENESE ART OF THE EARLY TRECENTO * I 35

afs®5

5 F W WK

i 1 y.

LATER GOTHIC ART IN TUSCANY

AND NORTHERN ITALY

I n the first half of the Trecento, the artists of Flo-
rence and Siena, especially the painters, created a
revolutionary form of art. Their discoveries antic-
ipated the Renaissance; the works of Giotto,
Nicola and Giovanni Pisano, and Ambrogio
Lorenzetti established a foundation for the Early Renais-
sance, as seen in the works of Donatello, Ghiberti, and
Masaccio that we will turn to shortly. Yet the history of
art, like that of humanity itself, does not follow a single
development and is seldom predictable. In some ways, the
art of the second half of the Trecento seems to have little
to do with the Renaissance that followed, and thus it is
sometimes passed over in a few perfunctory phrases.
Nonetheless, during this period artists produced works of
striking originality and expressive depth.

In Florence and Siena, the 1330s and 1340s were marred
by a series of escalating calamities. In Florence a flood in
1333, exceeded in height only by that of 1966, struck the
city with such violence that it tore down 600 feet of city
walls and towers along the Arno and brought havoc to
commerce, buildings, and, doubtless, works of art. Costly
and frustrating military activities and a succession of polit-
ical and economic crises were followed in the mid-1340s
by the failures of the Peruzzi and Bardi banks, chiefly due
to the bankruptcy of their English branches, which had
become involved in the military adventures of King
Edward III. Soon every major banking house in Florence

and Siena went bankrupt, with serious consequences for
economic and cultural life. A brief experiment with dicta-
torship under an outsider known as the Duke of Athens in
1342—43 did little to help, and agricultural disasters during
1346 and 1347 brought widespread famine.

The weakened and demoralized populations of Florence
and Siena were in no position to resist when the bubonic
plague — the so-called black death, which had already
attacked in 1340 — struck again in 1348 with dire intensity.
The mortality estimates range from 40 to 75 or even
80 percent in both cities — all during one hot, terrible
summer. Chronicles written by the survivors present a
picture of streets piled high with rotting corpses, economic
stasis, runaway inflation, and general terror. The work-
force was decimated, and the effects on every aspect of life
were devastating.

Artists suffered like everyone else. Bernardo Daddi,
Andrea Pisano, and probably Pietro and Ambrogio Loren-
zetti died in the plague. In Florence only Taddeo Gaddi
survived to carry the tradition of Giotto into the second
half of the century. The demand for works of art seems
also to have changed; in the wave of guilt and self-blame
that follows catastrophe, religion offered both an explana-
tion, in terms of divine wrath, and the consolation of the
belief in eternal life. The new style that developed at this
time has been interpreted in a variety of ways. One reading
is that in some works there was a turn toward the

Opposite: 5.1. ANDREA DA FIRENZE. Triumph of the Church (below) and the Navicella (above), c. 1366-68. Fresco, width of wall 31 ’6"
(9.6 m). Chapter House, Sta. Maria Novella, Florence.

Building and decoration commissioned by Mico di Lapo Guidalotti, a rich merchant and high public official whose brother Branca provided 200
florins of the total cost of 700 florins. They were permitted to use the chapel for burial and to have Masses said daily there for the salvation of
their souls. The payment for the frescoes was a house valued at 65 florins. The Chapter House at Sta. Maria Novella is now misleadingly known
as the Spanish Chapel because of its use in the sixteenth century by the Spanish community in Florence.

LATER GOTHIC ART IN TUSCANY AND NORTHERN ITALY • I 3 7

supernatural and a return to the Italo-Byzantine style as a
retreat from the humanity and naturalist effects of the
early Trecento. An alternate interpretation by Hayden
Maginnis sees the new art not as a denial of the old, but as
a development that heightens or transforms certain
aspects; he refers to it as a “mannered” style.

Mid-Trecento Art in Florence

An altarpiece painted by Andrea Orcagna (active c.
1343-1368) for the Strozzi Chapel in the Dominican
church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence (figs. 5.2-5. 3)

reveals the new style. At first glance the elements of
Giotto’s style seem to be present, but an examination
reveals that the figural composition is locked in a rigid and
formal pattern. In the center Christ is frontally enthroned
but no throne is visible; he appears as an apparition
framed in a mandorla by seraphim. Fixing the viewer with
a hypnotic gaze, but without looking at either of the kneel-
ing saints, Christ hands the keys to St. Peter, the “rock” on
whom the Church was founded, and presents a book to St.
Thomas Aquinas, one of the most important Dominican
saints and patron saint of the donor, Tommaso Strozzi.
The equation of Thomas with Peter suggests the important

5.2. View of the Strozzi Chapel
with altarpiece by ANDREA
ORCAGNA (see fig. 5.3) and
fresco cycle by NARDO DI
CIONE of the Last Judgment (rear
wall), Paradise (left wall), and Hell
(right wall) executed in the 1350s.
It Sta. Maria Novella, Florence
(see fig. 2.35). Commissioned by
Tommaso di Rossello Strozzi. The
figures in the stained glass, also by
Nardo di Cione, are the Madonna
and Child and the Dominican saint
Thomas Aquinas.

138 •

THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

5.3. ANDREA ORCAGNA. Enthroned Christ with Madonna and Saints . 1354—57. Panel, approx. 9' x 9'8" (2.74 x 2.95 m). Strozzi Chapel,
Sta. Maria Novella, Florence. The splendid frame is original.

role of theology in the ideology of the Dominicans. Behind
these paired symbols of ecclesiastical authority — historic
and intellectual, papal and Dominican — stand Mary,
patron of the church, and John the Baptist, patron of Flo-
rence. Space is ambiguous because the gold-figured carpet
is flat rather than giving any suggestion that it recedes into
depth. On the outer panels saints holding swords (Michael
and Paul) guard the flanks while those with instruments of
martyrdom (Catherine and Lawrence) stand within.

The emphasis on a linear definition of form is a change
from the soft roundness characteristic of Giotto’s works. In
the head of St. Peter, there is an insistence on every line of
the intricately curled beard and waved, crisply cut hair.
Even the complex shapes of the drapery are sharply
delineated. St. John the Baptist, his locks of hair writhing
like flames, looks outward with an expression of mystic
exaltation. Only the female or youthful faces are calm.
Thomas Aquinas’s distinctive face seems to be a portrait of
a living individual.

Two predella scenes are directly related to the saints:
Thomas Aquinas is shown in ecstasy during the celebration
of Mass, and Christ walks on water to save Peter. The third
scene, which represents the saving of the soul of the
Emperor Henry II, is unrelated to any figure above.
According to the story, Henry’s soul hung in the balance
until he made a gift of a golden chalice to the Cathedral of
Bamberg. Perhaps Tommaso Strozzi expected his gift of
this altarpiece to determine matters in his favor at the time
of his own death, which occurred a few years later.

Orcagna joined the Arte di Pietra e Legname in 1352
and in 1355 was made capomaestro of Orsanmichele (see
fig. 7.1). Probably in the same year he began a fantastic
tabernacle (fig. 5.4) to enshrine a large painting of the
Madonna and Child Enthroned by Bernardo Daddi, for
which money was collected in late 1348, after the terrible
summer of the black death. The scale — more than 36 feet
tall — and magnificent materials were made possible by the
tremendous sums given to Orsanmichele as a result of the

LATER GOTHIC ART IN TUSCANY AND NORTHERN ITALY * 139

140

THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

5.5. ANDREA ORCAGNA. Birth of the Virgin , detail of fig. 5.4.
Marble with glass mosaic background; height 11%" (30 cm).
Orsanmichele, Florence.

plague. The tabernacle is rich with sculpted reliefs and
figures, and its white marble architecture is encrusted with
inlaid ornament in blue, gold, and patterned glass.
Orcagna’s transformation of the Gothic style into a richer,
more highly decorated mode is evident from a comparison
with the lucidity of Giotto’s design for the Campanile of
the Cathedral of Florence (see fig. 3.24). Narration has
also changed, as demonstrated by comparing Orcagna’s
Birth of the Virgin from the tabernacle (fig. 5.5) with
Cavallini’s mosaic of the same subject (see fig. 2.18). In
Orcagna’s relief, the floor is tilted upward and the bed cur-
tains are parted like those of a stage to display narrative
and decorative details. The midwife admires the swaddled
child, for example, and a background figure holds a
pitcher and tray of the sort customarily given to Florentine
mothers after the birth of a male child (see fig. 12.3 for a
later example). Note too the bedroom walls of unplastered

5.6. ANDREA ORCAGNA. Death and Assumption of the Virgin ,
detail of fig. 5.4. Marble with inlaid gold mosaic background;

4' (1.22 m). Orsanmichele, Florence.

masonry, the interior shutters with their nailheads, and
even the keyholes in the linen chest (such chests formed the
pedestals of Italian beds of the period; see figs. 4.16, 9.5).
All this represents a departure from the restrained reliefs of
Andrea Pisano (see figs. 1.11, 3.34).

The Death and Assumption of the Virgin Mary on the
back of the tabernacle (fig. 5.6) could originally be viewed
by Trecento Florentines walking on the main street from
the civic center at Palazzo della Signoria to the Duomo,
since Orsanmichele’s loggia was then still open (see Map II
and fig. 7.1). The theme is an important one in Tuscany, as
the relic of the Virgin’s sash, dropped as she was lifted to
heaven, is believed to be preserved in the nearby town of
Prato. No sash is evident between the hands of Mary and
St. Thomas, to whom she gave the relic, suggesting that
perhaps a real piece of cloth may have animated the image,
moving in the air from the busy street. When the loggia

5.4. ANDREA ORCAGNA. Tabernacle. Probably begun 1352; finished 1359. White Carrara marble, green marble from Prato, and red
Maremma conglomerate with mosaic in colored glass (some with silver and gold underlining) and inlaid stone, gold, lapis lazuli, metal wings and
swords; height approximately 36'1" (11 m.); width at base approximately 13'9" (4.2 m). Orsanmichele, Florence. In the tabernacle: Madonna
and Child Enthroned by Bernardo Daddi, 1347. Commissioned by the Compagnia della Madonna di Orsanmichele. Only a few of the
tabernacle’s 117 reliefs and statues, which include angels, virtues, the twelve apostles, and the ancestors of Christ, are visible in this view.

LATER GOTHIC ART IN TUSCANY AND NORTHERN ITALY * 14 I

5.7. NARDO DI CIONE. Madonna and Child with Sts. Peter and John the Evangelist. Probably c. 1360. Tempera on panel,
height 30" (76.2 cm). National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (Kress Collection).

was open, the inlaid patterns would have scintillated in the
natural and reflected light or, after dark, in response to the
lighted candles held by the sculpted angels that surround
the scene. The sculptor Lorenzo Ghiberti later reported
that the tabernacle had cost 86,000 florins — a stupendous
sum. To emphasize his authorship, Orcagna included both
his signature and, in the figure of St. Andrew to the far
right in the Death and Assumption relief, his self-portrait.

Orcagna, whose real name was Andrea di Cione, was
one of three brothers (Andrea, Nardo, and Jacopo) whose
botteghe dominated much of the third quarter of the
Trecento in Florence. Nardo di Cione (active c.
1343-1 366) produced the Last Judgment with Paradise
and Hell that fills the walls of the Strozzi Chapel where
Orcagna’s Enthroned Christ is the altarpiece. The Last
Judgment appears on the window wall, while the side

142 * THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

walls are given over to the panoramic representations of
paradise and hell (see fig. 5.2).

Nardo’s beautifully preserved Washington triptych (fig.
5.7) is typical of the kind of small-scale folding paintings
used to aid private devotions. The elegant proportions of
the Madonna are typical of Nardo’s reinterpretation of
the style of Giotto, as is the richly tooled decoration. The
almost perfect condition of the painted surface here is
exceptional; the wings apparently remained closed for cen-
turies, protecting the surface from dirt, fading, or other
discoloration, as well as from rubbing or retouching. This
is one of the best-preserved of Italian fourteenth-century
pictures, and it can be used as a standard against which to
measure the condition and original qualities of other
tempera paintings of this period.

A fascinating figure in the complex picture of the third
quarter of the Trecento in Florence is Andrea Bonaiuti,
known as Andrea da Firenze (active c. 1343-1377). Little
of his work now survives, with the exception of a
panoramic series of frescoes in the Chapter House at Santa
Maria Novella, where the monks met regularly to discuss
issues of governance (figs. 5.1, 5.8). Andrea converted the
interior into a vast panorama surpassing in scale even the
Government frescoes by Ambrogio Lorenzetti (see figs.
4.28 — 4.31 ). Here, however, the theme is ecclesiastical
rather than secular government, and it was clearly the
intent of the patron, a wealthy merchant, and of the
Dominican monks who reside at Santa Maria Novella, to
emphasize the role of the Dominican Order in the Church
hierarchy’s enforcement of dogma. All the frescoes make
reference to the sacred origins and supreme power of the
Roman Church in general and to the importance of the
Dominican Order in particular. Perhaps the most unusual
is the scene known as the Triumph of the Church (some-
times called the Road to Salvation ; see fig. 5.1).

This fresco covers one whole wall of the Chapter House.
The lower part is concerned with religious life on earth and
the upper part with heaven; the area between is controlled
by the Dominican Order. A detailed representation of the
Duomo of Florence, then incomplete and never to be fin-
ished as it is shown here, is intended to refer to the Church
on earth; it was perhaps also a reminder that, at this time,
the archbishop of Florence was a Dominican, and Andrea
was one of the Duomo’s consulting architects. The
reigning pope, Urban V, is enthroned in the center of
this section, with ecclesiastics on his right and subservient
secular rulers on his left. The sheep at his feet, symbolizing
the Christian flock, are guarded by black-and-
white dogs — the domini canes (a play on the word
“Dominicans” that translates as “dogs of the Lord”) — and
a crowd of ecclesiastical and secular figures gathers before
the thrones.

On the right-hand side is the world outside the fortress
of the Church, where black-and-white dogs attack wolves
and Dominican saints admonish heretics and refute

5.8. Iconographic diagram of Andrea da Firenze’s fresco cycle in the
Chapter House (Spanish Chapel), Sta. Maria Novella, Florence (see
fig. 2.35). Computerized diagram by Sarah Loyd Cameron.

1. Navicella (see fig. 5.1).

2. Christ Carrying the Cross .

3. Crucifixion.

4. Harrowing of Hell.

5. Three Marys at the Tomb.

6. Resurrection.

7. Noli Me Tangere.

8. Ascension.

9. Pentecost.

10. Apotheosis of St. Thomas Aquinas.

11. Triumph of the Church (see fig. 5.1).

12-17. Scenes of the Life of St. Peter Martyr.

SPANISH CHAPEL

LATER GOTHIC ART IN TUSCANY AND NORTHERN ITALY *

i 4 3

pagans. Above these groups, worldly figures dance in the
fields, make music, and embrace in the bushes. These
sinners can be rescued only by the sacrament of penance,
administered by a Dominican, while another Dominican
saint ushers the saved into heaven. In front of the splendid
gates, opened by St. Peter, angels crown the little souls who
then move into heaven. Only the saints in heaven can
behold Christ, who, with book and key, floats above.
Below him the apocalyptic lamb on his altar-throne is
guarded by symbols of the four Evangelists, while angelic
attendants praise God. The details, the general composi-
tion, and the symbolism all support the didactic function
of this expansive mural. The space represented in the land-
scape is curiously negated by the composition and the
coloring, which produce an effect of allover patterning.

Andrea has also been identified as the artist who
designed the magnificent rose window on the facade of
Santa Maria Novella (fig. 5.9). The subject is appropriate,
for all who exited this new church dedicated to Mary
could look up and see her final triumph: her coronation as
Queen of Heaven by Christ. Stained glass was a medium

5.9. ANDREA DA FIRENZE. Coronation of the Virgin Mary with
Donor, c. 1366-68. Stained glass. Sta. Maria Novella, Florence (see
fig. 2.35). Commissioned by Tebaldino de 3 Ricci, whose family coat
of arms appear in the outer frame.

While stained-glass windows were often manufactured in a
professional workshop, in Florence the artist who designed the
composition was frequently involved in the creation and painting of
the details on the glass; the suggestion has been advanced that this
window was painted by Andrea himself. The prophet in the upper
right was restored in the fifteenth century.

imported from Gothic France. The Italian concern with
narrative, however, means that the subject matter here is
larger and easier to read than it would be in the typical
Northern Gothic rose window, which is segmented into
smaller areas by stone tracery. The central figures, in front
of whom kneels the donor, are surrounded by the music-
making, jubilant angels who are a standard feature of this
subject. The outer circle features prophets in medallions
amid the curling tendrils and luxurious blossoms of a
rinceau — a decorative motif derived from ancient Roman
sculpture. Although the subject is treated in a clear way,
Andrea has captured the scintillating effect of French
Gothic stained-glass windows by the patterning of the

5.10. GIOVANNI DA MILANO. Pieta. 1365. Panel, 43V 4 x 18V8"
(110 x 46 cm). Accademia, Florence.

144 • THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

luxurious draperies, which break down the larger masses
into a dazzling display of jeweled colors. The setting of this
event in heaven is also communicated by the glowing
colors, referring to St. John the Evangelist’s statement that
in his vision of heaven the walls were “adorned with all
manner of precious stones” (21:19).

Giovanni da Milano (active 1346-1366) was, as his
name suggests, an outsider from Lombardy working in
Florence at the same time. As a foreigner he was less tied
than his Florentine contemporaries to the style of Giotto.
His Pieta (fig. 5.10) represents the dead Christ upheld by
the Virgin, Mary Magdalen, and St. John. The manner in
which Christ’s body is raised by the grieving figures is
intended to remind the observer of the suffering that Christ
endured for humanity. The intense emotion of pictures
such as this reminds us of how art served religion during
this period: while we may admire the artist’s understand-
ing and skill in representing compassion and grief, those
who used the picture in the late Trecento would have
understood it as an aid to personal devotion. The absence
of any setting and the luminous gold background, which
silhouettes the smooth outlines of the figures, have a
simplicity that seems almost modern, but their original
purpose was to focus the worshipper’s attention on the
inner meaning of Christ’s sacrifice. The Pieta became an
important theme in Italian art, and was chosen by both
Titian and Michelangelo for the works they intended for
their own tombs (see figs. 19.27, 20.17).

Late Gothic Painting and the
International Style

The last quarter of the Trecento is marked by a continua-
tion of the styles seen earlier; revolutionary developments
in art resume only in the early years of the Quattrocento.
Government was run by committee in both Florence and
Siena in order to forestall either dictatorship or revolution.
Applied to artistic projects, the result of this patronage
seems to have been a leveling process that stressed con-
formity at the expense of individuality. In this bureaucratic
society, which held oligarchical control over all state activ-
ities, the most representative painter in Florence was
Agnolo Gaddi (active c. 1369-1396), the son of Taddeo
Gaddi and the artist whose precepts, following those of
Giotto, appear to be recorded in Cennino Cennini’s
Book of Art (see p. 27). Agnolo had at his fingertips the
resources of the Trecento tradition, and at his best he fused
his Giottoesque inheritance with the compositional and
expressive devices of the mid-century artists.

Agnolo’s principal work, for which he must have needed
a large bottega , is a vast fresco cycle of the Legend of the

True Cross for the Church of Santa Croce in Florence. On
the walls of the great apse (see figs. 2.36, 2.37, 3.19),
Agnolo composed on a gigantic scale, and within each
composition two or three separate episodes are represented
as if they are taking place side by side; sometimes scenes
almost overlap. Landscape or architectural elements serve
as dividers, in a manner reminiscent of the crowded com-
positions of Nicola and Giovanni Pisano a century or so
earlier. By juxtaposing large and small, near and distant, in
tightly knit scenes such as the Triumph of Heraclius over
Chosroes (fig. 5.11), Agnolo narrated each episode of the
story with equal visibility. (For a discussion of the rather
complex legend underlying this fresco and the others in
Agnolo’s choir, see the discussion of Piero della Francesca’s
cycle of the same theme in the choir of a Franciscan church
in Arezzo, pp. 283-88.)

Agnolo’s colors are brilliant and varied, and his use of
detail suggests the effect of huge tapestries, preserving the
integrity of the surface of the wall and unifying the chapel
as a whole. In many scenes Agnolo demonstrates his
mastery of spatial recession; in the Chosroes scene, for
example, he uses different ways to suggest depth. Agnolo’s
landscape devices, drapery forms, and compositional
methods seem to have determined the representation of
such elements in Florentine painting until the works of
Gentile da Fabriano and Masaccio in the 1420s.

The Late Gothic style practiced by Agnolo and others
seems to have been what patrons wanted, and it was what
the painters gave them for an industrious half-century or
so. Among the host of competent practitioners in this final
phase of Gothic-style painting in Florence, a single artist
stands out: known today as Lorenzo Monaco (“Lawrence
the Monk”), he was probably born in the mid-1370s and
he died (or ceased working) in 1423 or 1424. His early
works seem to have been influenced by Agnolo Gaddi in
color, drapery rhythms, and landscape motifs. But the
attenuated figures, graceful poses, and sweeping curves of
drapery in Lorenzo Monaco’s figures also betray the influ-
ence of a new style from the north. Because it flourished
across northern Europe, from London to Prague, it is
known as the International Gothic — a term used also to
identify the style of some of the early works of Ghiberti
(see figs. 7.5, 7.8) and the related style of Gentile da Fab-
riano (see fig. 8.2). As far as Tuscan art is concerned, the
term “international” is somewhat of a misnomer. For
examples painted in northern Europe, it is often difficult to
determine in what center or even in what country a work
originated, but in Tuscany clarity and firmness usually
prevail over the most exuberant Gothic movement.

At this point, we are somewhat out of chronology, for
the International Gothic style seen in Lorenzo Monaco’s
paintings reveals that the dominant influence on his

LATER GOTHIC ART IN TUSCANY AND NORTHERN ITALY * 145

5.11. AGNOLO GADDI. Triumph of Heraclius over Chosroes, from the Legend of the True Cross. 1388-93. Fresco. Sta. Croce, Florence.
Commissioned by Benedetto di Nerozzo degli Alberti (see figs. 2.36, 3.19).

mature style was the work of the sculptor Lorenzo Ghib-
erti, who will not be discussed until Chapter 7. This helps
explain the vigorous sculptural quality of Lorenzo’s
flowing drapery, which resembles the folds in contempo-
rary sculptures by Ghiberti, Nanni di Banco, and
Donatello (see fig. 7.11). But to place Lorenzo Monaco
where he belongs chronologically would ignore one factor:
the first practitioners of the new style of the Early Renais-
sance were concerned with naturalism, basing their art on
observation — an approach to representation that meant
little to Lorenzo Monaco.

It is not easy to reconstruct Lorenzo’s environment. We
know that he joined the Camaldolite Order at Santa Maria
degli Angeli in Florence in 1390 and rose to the rank of
deacon in 1396. By 1402 he was enrolled in the Arte dei
Medici e Speziali under his lay name, Piero di Giovanni,
and was living outside the monastery. Apparently he
retained his monastic status while working as a painter in

the public sphere. The Camaldolite Order was one of the
most mystical of the Tuscan religious communities, and
this mysticism is expressed in Lorenzo’s Coronation of
the Virgin (fig. 5.12), which was created for his own
monastery, Santa Maria degli Angeli (later, Brunelleschi
designed a new church for the order; see fig. 6.20). In the
central panel, a tide of colors and forms seems to lift us
into the empyrean, beyond the dome of heaven itself,
which we see in cross-section, its arches shaded in blue and
studded with golden stars. At a Gothic tabernacle, Christ
crowns his mother. Above, God the Father blesses the
scene, while in the side gables Gabriel makes his announce-
ment to the seated Mary.

Crisp contours and emphatic shading give the figures a
strong, sculptural effect. The color composition is based on
a bouquet of blues — the dome of the heavens, the blue
clouds, the blue shadows, Christ’s azure mantle — in com-
bination with the gold background and the dazzling whites

146 * THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

5.12. LORENZO MONACO. Coronation of the Virgin. Dated February 1414 (actually 1413). Panel, 1 6'9" x 14'9" (5.12 x 4.5 m).

- ffizi Gallery, Florence. Commissioned for the high altar of Sta. Maria degli Angeli, Florence.

The inscription provides a date of February 1414, but it is unlikely that such an inclusion refers to the completion of the painting, which would
hardly have been something worth noting at the time. Dates on works of art more likely refer to the date of dedication of a chapel or altar, or to
file event that inspired the work of art. February 1414 in the Florentine calendar refers to February 1413 in modern dating, since the Florentines
began their year on March 25, the day celebrating the Annunciation to the Virgin Mary and, therefore, the date of Christ’s conception.

LATER GOTHIC ART IN TUSCANY AND NORTHERN ITALY * 1 47

of the mantles. The figures in white robes at the far left and
right are respectively St. Benedict, of whose order the
Camaldolites were a branch, and St. Romuald, their
founder. In honor of the Benedictines, Mary is garbed in
white instead of the traditional blue. The colors from the
surrounding saints and angels are reflected in the shadows
of these white garments, and even the lightest areas are
often emphasized by the use of glowing yellow. Rainbow-
winged angels swing censers below the throne.

The scenes in the predella are framed in a version of
the Gothic quatrefoil used by Giotto and Andrea Pisano
(see figs. 3.5, 3.34). Lorenzo’s Nativity (fig. 5.13) is based
partly on the writings of Bridget, a fourteenth-century
Swedish princess who would later be canonized by Pope
Martin V. Lorenzo does not show every detail of Bridget’s
vision at the cave in Bethlehem that traditionally marks the
site of the Nativity, but he includes the principal elements,
which can be related to a new version of the Nativity that
became popular in Quattrocento Florence — the Adoration
of the Child (see figs. 12.26, 15.12). In Lorenzo’s scene,
Mary kneels to worship her newborn child, who is sur-
rounded by golden rays; Bridget commented on the light
that radiated from the newborn child. Lorenzo has added
to the cave of Bridget’s vision the shed from the Western
tradition, matching its shape to the angles of the quatre-

foil. The curves of the frame are reflected in the robes of
St. Joseph, which unfold below his body like the petals of
a rose. In the dark night outside, an angel awakens
the shepherds.

When Lorenzo died, he left unfinished a large altarpiece
for the Strozzi family; apparently he had finished only the
pinnacles. The altarpiece was completed a decade later by
another monastic painter, Fra Angelico, who was already
working in the new, more naturalistic style (see fig. 9.2).
The contrast between Lorenzo’s curvilinear figures, silhou-
etted against their luminous gold backgrounds, and Fra
Angelico’s sturdy individuals, standing in a landscape filled
with natural light, eloquently demonstrates how quickly
style was transformed during the Renaissance.

This and Lorenzo Monaco’s other works represent a
final flowering of the Gothic style in Florence. His display
of light in the predella panel differs dramatically from the
treatment of the same scene by Gentile da Fabriano nine
years later (see fig. 8.3), and even seems less real than the
rendering of supernatural light by Giotto in the Arena
Chapel (see figs. 3. 8-3.9). Lorenzo Monaco’s visual poetry
might be described as imaginative and unreal. The crucial
developments of the early Quattrocento, on the other
hand, were based on a new interest in the realities of daily
human experience.

5.13. LORENZO MONACO. Nativity, on the predella of the Coronation of the Virgin (fig. 5.12). 1414. Panel, I 2 V 2 x 21" (32 x 53 cm).

148 * THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

Painting and Sculpture in
Northern Italy

In the late Middle Ages and Early Renaissance, the politi-
cal life of northern Italy was dominated by relations
between Venice and Milan, the two most important city-
states, and their occasional interaction with such smaller
centers as Mantua, Ferrara, Padua, and Brescia, whose
communal governments had, at varying moments, been
taken over by princes who founded hereditary dynasties.
Milan, near the northern edge of the Lombard plain, con-
trolled trade routes to northern Europe. Once the capital
of the Western Roman Empire, it became a flourishing
commercial center. Its territory, however, was landlocked
until Duke Giangaleazzo Visconti gained temporary
control of Pisa in the opening years of the Quattrocento.
Opposition to this Milanese imperialism, which aimed at
domination of the Italian peninsula, came from Florence
and was eventually successful. Florence found its only ally
in republican Venice, whose outburst of independent artis-
tic activity began in the middle of the Quattrocento and
continued throughout the Cinquecento.

THE VENETIAN REPUBLIC. The very existence
of Venice is amazing. The city was founded in the fifth and
sixth centuries on marshy islets of the Adriatic by refugees
from the Roman cities of the Po Valley who were fleeing
barbarian invaders. Deprived of their territory and homes,
the settlers turned to the sea as their resource and protec-
tion. The Venetian Republic — actually an oligarchy of aris-
tocratic families with an elected duke (doge in Venetian
dialect) — became the only state in Western Europe to
survive from antiquity into modern times without revolu-
tion, invasion,. or conquest, enduring from the last years of
the Roman Empire until Napoleon abolished it in 1797.

Venice was the only Italian state to achieve an extensive
empire. For many centuries the Venetians disliked and dis-
trusted land power; their interest was in commerce and
their riches were fantastic — both had to be protected. The
security of the city was not hard to maintain; its lagoons
were superior to any fortifications devised by land-based
states and the Venetian navy was the equal of its maritime
rivals. Sea commerce needed bases, which the Venetians
developed throughout the Adriatic, Ionian, and Aegean
seas. The Most Serene Republic of St. Mark — “La Serenis-
sima,” as Venice was termed in legal documents — took
over ports down the Adriatic coast and throughout the
Greek islands, and, after the capture of Constantinople by
Crusaders in 1204, enjoyed extraterritorial possession of a
quarter of that imperial city. The colorful pageantry of
Venetian art is directly related to the city’s history and

topography: ships, flags, exotic garments, and wares of
many nations mingled here, and the palaces of brick, lime-
stone, or marble are still illuminated today by both reflec-
tions from the water and the direct light of the sun.

The sources for Duecento and Trecento Venetian art
were largely in the East. Inspired by the Byzantine mosaics
they had seen in Greece and Constantinople, and some-
times importing Byzantine mosaicists, the Venetians set to
work covering the interior of the Basilica of San Marco
with more than 40,000 square feet of glittering mosaics.
With the lower walls sheathed in slabs of veined marble,
the effect was and is one of sumptuous richness.

In the Duecento, a lively school of panel painting based
closely on Byzantine models arose in Venice, but Venetian
painting found its first authoritative voice in Paolo
Veneziano, whose signed works can be dated from the
1320s to the 1360s. His works exemplify the refinement of
Italo-Byzantine style. In Paolo’s earliest dated work, the
Coronation of the Virgin (fig. 5.14), the freedom, fresh-
ness, and brilliance of the color epitomize Venetian taste.

5.14. PAOLO VENEZIANO. Coronation of the Virgin . 1324.
Tempera on panel, 39 x 30 V 2 " (100 x 78 cm). National Gallery of
Art, Washington, D.C. (Kress Collection).

LATER GOTHIC ART IN TUSCANY AND NORTHERN ITALY * I 49

Unlike Tuscan painting, no clear-cut forms emerge; the
picture is swept by waves of different colors and patterns,
forming a web of color and lines, like a luxurious fabric.
As we study the splendid surfaces of Venetian art, it is rel-
evant to remember that the Venetians dealt principally in
spices and silks.

As in many other cities, the new Franciscan and Domini-
can churches in Venice were among the largest religious
structures. The Franciscan church of Santa Maria Gloriosa
dei Frari (figs. 5.15, 5.16) and the Dominican Church of
Santi Giovanni e Paolo (not illustrated here) were both

built of brick, which is a lighter material than stone and
more appropriate for construction in Venice, while their
plans follow the cruciform type, with single side aisles and
central apses flanked by multiple chapels. Their spacious
naves have Gothic ribbed cross-vaults, with wooden tie-
rods to constrain the outward thrust of the vaulting, thus
avoiding heavy buttressing on the exterior. The supporting
piers are enormous cylinders. The massive scale satisfied
the need for large preaching spaces, while the austerity of
design and lack of decoration were intended to communi-
cate the simplicity the orders promoted. The similarity

Left: 5.15. Interior of Sta. Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, Venice.
Begun c. 1330, finished after 1443. Length of nave, 295'

(90 m). Commissioned by the Franciscans.

Visible on the high altar is Titian’s Assumption of the Virgin
of 1518 (see fig. 19.10). The monk’s choir, which has been
destroyed in so many Italian Gothic churches, including Sta.
Maria Novella and Sta. Croce in Florence (see figs. 2.34,
2.36), survives here. The marble screen dates from 1475
and was carved by Bartolomeo Bon and Pietro Lombardo.

Right: 5.16. Plan of Sta. Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, Venice. From Dehio and
von Bezold.

The numbers indicate the following monuments, added to this Gothic
church by Renaissance artists:

1. Frari Altarpiece, Giovanni Bellini, 1488 (see fig. 15.42).

2. Assumption of the Virgin , Titian, 1518 (see fig. 19.10).

3. Madonna of the Pesaro Family , Titian, 1526 (see figs. 19.15-19.16).
Titian’s Pietd of c. 1576 (see fig. 19.27) was originally intended to be placed
over the artist’s tomb in this church.

15m
—r*
45 ft

r 5 o

THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

between the two churches and their dissimilarity to Gothic
architecture elsewhere suggests that there was a deter-
mined attempt to invent a distinctive Venetian variation on
the Gothic style.

PADUA. The painters of Padua built upon Giotto’s
achievements; indeed their art may in some aspects be con-
sidered a Giottesque revival. The prolific Paduan fresco
painters added striking observations of their own in land-
scape, portraiture, and in the painting of animals. The
most successful came to Padua from outside — Jacopo
Avanzi from Bologna and Altichiero from Verona. To
Avanzi have been attributed most of the lunettes of the life
of St. James, painted about 1374 in the Chapel of St. James

5.17. JACOPO AVANZI (attributed to) and ALTICHIERO.

Fresco cycle. 1370s. Chapel of St. Felix (formerly St. James),

Sant’ Antonio, Padua. Commissioned by Bonifacio Lupi di Soragno
and his wife, Caterina dei Franceschi, who are represented being
presented to the Virgin and Child by their patron saints in a scene not
visible here. The architecture, designed by the Venetian sculptor and
architect Andriolo de’ Santi, was commissioned in 1372.

(now St. Felix) in Sant’ Antonio, while to Altichiero has
been assigned the huge Crucifixion in the same chapel and
some of the lunettes (fig. 5.17).

Avanzi’s Liberation of the Companions of St. James (fig.
5.18) demonstrates the qualities of the Paduan style.
Although Ambrogio Lorenzetti and the Master of the
Triumph of Death had developed the panoramic back-
ground (see figs. 4.30, 4.37), no Tuscan painter offered
Avanzi’s kind of nature, both impassable and impenetra-
ble. The human figures, many showing traits of physiog-
nomy and drapery that remind us of Giotto and Maso di
Banco, are dominated by the central mass of rocks. In the
foreground a bridge has collapsed, and the persecutors
following the saint’s companions fall into a stream. The
floundering horses and humans are represented with strik-
ing fidelity. It seems unlikely that a Tuscan painter in the
Trecento would have put a horse seen from below in the
most prominent spot in the painting.

In density and richness, Altichiero’s panoramic Crucifix-
ion (fig. 5.19) is one of largest and most impressive fres-
coes of the century. The columns that divide the scene
repeat the arched colonnade that separates the chapel from
the nave; by incorporating them into his painting, the artist

5.18. JACOPO AVANZI (attributed to). Liberation of the
Companions of St. James, c. 1374. Fresco. Chapel of St. Felix
(formerly St. James), Sant’ Antonio, Padua. See fig. 5.17.

LATER GOTHIC ART IN TUSCANY AND NORTHERN ITALY * IJI

5.19. ALTICHIERO. Crucifixion . c. 1375. Fresco. Chapel of St. Felix (formerly St. James), Sant’Antonio, Padua (see fig. 5.17).

makes us feel as if we are viewing the scene through them,
giving the Crucifixion a greater vivacity. Although the
figures and head types reflect the influence of Giotto,
the level of realistic detail, especially in the heads, adds
another level of veracity to our perception of the scene.
Altichiero’s soft colors and more diffused light also mark a
change from the Giottesque style that dominated during
the first half of the century.

MILAN. In 1387, Milan lost its communal liberties to
the Visconti family, and for the next two centuries the
Visconti, succeeded by their relatives the Sforza, held sov-
ereignty over a territory that included, at times, all of
Lombardy and much of central Italy. At Milan and Pavia
these rulers boasted courts whose magnificence was rivaled
on the Italian peninsula only by those of the Vatican and
the Kingdom of Naples.

Bernabo Visconti, count of Milan, commissioned a
remarkable monument (fig. 5.20) probably from the

5.20. BO NINO DA CAMPIONE (attributed to). Equestrian
Monument to Bernabo Visconti. Before 1363. Workshop of Bonino
da Campione, Sarcophagus ofBemabd Visconti . c. 1385. Marble,
originally with polychromy, gilding, silver decoration, and a cloth
flag or pennant; overall height 19'8" (6 m). Civico Museo d’Arte
Antica del Castello Sforzesco, Milan. Equestrian monument
commissioned by Bernabo Visconti for the high altar of S. Giovanni
in Conca, Milan.

I 5 2

THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

Lombard sculptor Bonino da Campione (active
1357-1385). This colossal statue of Bernabo on horse-
back, originally placed behind the high altar of a church,
predates the equestrian monuments by Donatello and
Andrea del Verrocchio by many decades (see figs. 10.23,
13.16). In contrast to its dynamic Renaissance successors,
which are imbued with the influence of ancient Rome,
Bernabo’s steed plants all four feet firmly on the base, and
the rider, standing boldly up in his stirrups, stares grimly
ahead. According to Trecento sources, the statue was
covered with silver and gold decoration and the figure held
a flag or pennant. Such a mixture of color and media in
Italian sculpture is not uncommon; in general, sculpture
during this period was almost certainly more colorful than
is generally recognized today. Later the equestrian figure
became a part of Bernabd’s tomb. In 1385 Bernabo was
imprisoned by his nephew Giangaleazzo Visconti, who, ten
years later, purchased the title of duke of Milan from the
Holy Roman Emperor, Wenceslas. Aspiring to rule over all

Italy, Giangaleazzo became, as we shall see, a threat to the
Florentine Republic.

Animals constituted one of the delights of the Milanese
and other northern Italian courts, and the pleasures of the
chase and the joys of collecting rare animals and birds
from Africa and the Near East enlivened their art. Giovan-
nino de’ Grassi (active 1380s, d. 1398) was architect,
sculptor, and painter to Giangaleazzo. He was also respon-
sible for a“ book of animal studies and for the first half of
a magnificent Book of Hours. In initial “D” from Psalm
118 (fig. 5.21), King David is shown enthroned in a Gothic
interior. The border ornaments, entwined with gold, are
schematic trees that grow from green grass and rocky
slopes sparkling with wild flowers. Giangaleazzo ’s shaggy
hunting dogs sniff their prey: three stags and a doe,
crouching, climbing, grazing, and even represented fore-
shortened from the rear. The naturalism and realistic detail
of Giovannino and other Lombard illuminators was
internationally famous; known to contemporary French

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LATER GOTHIC ART IN TUSCANY AND NORTHERN ITALY • 153

artists as the ouvraige de Lombardie , it appears to have
inspired both the art of the Limbourg brothers in Bur-
gundy, and, in Italy, the work of Gentile da Fabriano (see
figs. 8. 2-8. 4).

Giangaleazzo gathered about himself a talented group of
artists from Lombardy, France, Germany, and the Nether-
lands to build the Cathedral of Milan (figs. 5.22-5.23),

5.22. Interior of Milan Cathedral. Building begun 1385 or 1386,
choir and transepts completed c. 1450. Marble from the quarries at
Candoglia, in the vicinity of Lago Maggiore, with brick vaults. The
cathedral was initially commissioned by Archbishop Antonio da
Saluzzio, who was a cousin of Giangaleazzo Visconti. Construction
took many centuries; the lantern, for example, was not finished until
1500 and the cathedral was not dedicated until 1577. The facade,
many of the upper pinnacles, and the pinnacle statuary were
completed after 1805, on Napoleon's orders, and are not illustrated
here. The marble was moved by water from the quarries to a dock
near the construction site.

5.23. Milan Cathedral, transverse section of Gabriele Stornaloco’s
plan of 1391 (as illustrated in Cesare Caesariano, Comment on
Vitruvius , Como, 1521).

which he intended should rival the great Gothic cathedrals
of northern Europe. Documents record debates about the
cathedral design between more than fifty local and
imported architects, engineers and even professional math-
ematicians who were engaged by Giangaleazzo. His court
artist, Giovannino de 5 Grassi, served as capomaestro from
1392 to 1398. At one point in the process of design and
construction, the participants were divided into two
camps: one supported a resolution that emphasized practi-
cal engineering experience, which at the time was called ars
(art); the second emphasized scientia (science), by which
was meant a dependence on geometrical ordering and
design, arguing that, without geometry, the engineering
experience is nothing: “ars sine scientia nihil est” (roughly
translating as “skill is nothing without theoretical know-
ledge”). The first group capitulated, agreeing that no

154 * THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

architect could ignore the primary importance of geometry
in design and construction.

The idea that there is an intimate connection between
architecture and mathematics is an old one. In his treatise
De Musica (387-89 CE), St. Augustine said that the math-
ematical proportions necessary for both music and archi-
tecture were the same as those of the universe, arguing that
these disciplines thus aided us in contemplating the divine
order of God’s creation. While the connection between
mathematical proportions and music had been made by
Pythagoras in antiquity, it was St. Augustine who drew
architecture into the mix.

The overarching role that geometry played at Milan is
demonstrated in a print that preserves a proportional plan
designed by the mathematician Gabriele Stornaloco of
Piacenza (fig. 5.23). The cathedral as built followed a
similar but slightly modified scheme with lower vaults.
Among the many complexities of this scheme, the height of
the side aisles was determined by a series of equilateral tri-
angles. Circles show how the proportions conform to more
than one system and how the cathedral can be related to
universal harmonies. Geometry also provided a foundation
for the earliest Renaissance architecture, designed by Filippo
Brunelleschi, to which we will turn in the next chapter.

Geometry brought its own problems, however. Milanese
documents record that Heinrich Parler, architect of Prague
Cathedral, believed that the great height of the piers at
Milan caused a certain structural instability. His suggestion
was to increase the height so that the space created
would be equal to the width, thus creating a perfect

square. Such a move would actually have made the struc-
ture less stable, and, fortunately, the Milanese chose to add
buttresses instead.

The vast interior — the nave vaults reach 156 feet (47.6
meters) and the area covered is about 126,000 square feet
(11,706 square meters) — is both Gothic in its use of
pointed arches and ribbed vaulting, and Italian in the mod-
ifications to the French system that were introduced. Like
many other Italian Gothic churches, it is exceptionally
wide and the effect of verticality so emphatic in northern
structures is broken by the horizontal emphasis created by
the unusual capitals. The scale of the structure becomes
evident when we realize that the sculpted figures in the
capitals’ niches are life-sized. Despite the cathedral’s osten-
sibly religious purpose, its size and grandeur indicate that
it was also intended as a statement about the power of
Visconti rule.

TRENT. An exceptional secular fresco cycle of The
Months draws our attention northward to Trent, in the
foothills of the Alps (fig. 5.24). The theme of the months
is not purely secular, for the cycles of nature were consid-
ered a revelation of the divine order that orchestrates all
of life. The repeated patterns of flowery meadows, leafy
forests, and fields with haystacks here are surely meant to
suggest the design motifs common in French Gothic tapes-
tries and are a reminder that, during the Gothic period, a
secular ruler would prefer to decorate his residence with
tapestries than frescoes. While tapestries could provide
desirable insulation during the winter months, more

3.24. The Months,

April-September. Before 1407;
restored in 1535. Fresco; each 10'
high (3 m); dimensions of room
19'8" x 19' 1" (6 x 5.8 m). Eagle’s
Tower, Castello del Buonconsiglio,
Trent. Commissioned by Georg von
Lichtenstein, Bishop of Trent. Only
eleven of the months survive. The
draped fabric painted below
replaces the original wainscoting,
which was painted with a sequence
of niches.

1 : IJ

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LATER GOTHIC ART IN TUSCANY AND NORTHERN ITALY

1 5 5

important was the impact they made because of their
value. Being much more expensive than frescoes, tapestries
could convey to guests the wealth, and therefore power, of
their host. By suggesting the style of elite foreign tapestries,
the Trent frescoes at the very least must have signified the
sophisticated taste of their patron.

The frescoes’ subject matter presents a revealing indica-
tion of how a ruler from this period chose to represent
episodes in the lives of both aristocrats and peasants.
While we must be careful not to interpret the seemingly
everyday scenes here as a mirror of reality, the social hier-
archy represented was, indeed, quite real. The Bishop of
Trent commissioned an artist to depict aristocrats at play
and peasants at work, indicating their separate roles while
reinforcing the social fact that leisure belongs to those in
power. The difference in scale between the toiling peasants
and the wealthy underscores this social gulf pictorially by
symbolizing worldly status — or lack thereof.

VERONA. The placement of the statue of Count
Bernabo Visconti of Milan behind the high altar of a
church signified both Bernabo’s divine right to rule and his
subordinate position to God. The monument to Cansigno-
rio della Scala, ruler of Verona (fig. 5.25), was placed in a
public piazza, suggesting to the citizenry that Cansigno-
rio’s authority was absolute. It was the last in a series of
monumental equestrian tomb monuments erected by the
Scala family as hereditary rulers of the city. In a desire to
outdo his predecessors, Cansignorio commissioned the
largest monument and had it decorated in a rich Gothic
style. Figures of soldiers in tabernacles surround the
bier/sarcophagus in the middle, while virtues and angels
lead our eyes upward to a triumphant Cansignorio at the
summit. The metal wings of the angels were probably

5.25.BONINO DA CAMPIONE. Funerary Monument of
Cansignorio della Scala. Completed 1376. Marble, gilded metal,
wrought iron. 1 Piazza next to Sta. Maria Antica, Verona. Probably
commissioned by Cansignorio.

Although the work is signed by Bonino da Campione and one
Gaspare (the builder?), it has little in common with other works by
Bonino and is probably a composite work hurriedly designed and
erected at the request of a youthful ruler during his final illness.
Cansignorio, only thirty-six when he died in 1375, had requested
that his tomb be the work of “the most excellent sculptors and
architects to be found in Italy at the time.” He was more interested
in art and architecture than in military affairs, and he is reported
to have said that “building was a sweet way to become poor.”
Cansignorio became ruler of Verona at the age of twenty-one
when he assassinated his older brother, Cangrande II.

originally gilded and the monument had details added in
color when completed. The imposing force of Cansigno-
rio’s personality is still evident when viewed today; such a
presence predicted the later rise of a secularized world view
that placed great value on the individual.

156 * THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

PART TWO

THE QUATTROCENTO

6 . The Renaissance Begins: Architecture

158

7, Transitions in Tuscan Sculpture

180

8 . Transitions in Florentine Painting

Z02

9 . The Heritage of Masaccio: Fra Angelico and Fra Filippo Lippi

222

10. Florentine Architecture and Sculpture, c. 1430-14.55

238

1 I . Florentine Painting at Mid-Century

262

12. Arr in Florence under the Medici 1

294

FRANCESCO DEL

1 3. Art in Florence under the Medici 11

318

COSSA. April

14. The Renaissance in Centra! Italy

358

(detail of fij», 15 . 66 ).

15. Gothic and Renaissance in Venice and Northern Italy

388

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THE RENAISSANCE BEGINS:

ARCHITECTURE

W e have seen indications of the impact
of surviving works of classical anti-
quity, notably in the sculpture of
Nicola and Giovanni Pisano, but
only after 1400 did these remains of
ancient civilization become one of the dominant influences
in Italian art. The change was so transformative that most
scholars agree at this point that we should begin to use the
term Renaissance to describe the new developments in
Italian art.

The inspiration of antiquity was first evident in
sculpture and architecture, while painting — a medium in
which few ancient examples were known in the Quattro-
cento — continued to adhere to the principles of the
International Gothic style. But which medium should we
discuss first: sculpture or architecture? In the opening years
of the Quattrocento, sculpture was the first medium to
demonstrate the strong impact of antiquity, combined
with significant effects of naturalism (see figs. 7.2-7 .3).
But the most important sculptor, Lorenzo Ghiberti, almost
immediately turned away from the new developments to
explore the fashionable International Gothic style.
However, when Filippo Brunelleschi revolutionized archi-
tecture by using a vocabulary of forms and details
taken from ancient monuments, there was no going back.
Thus we begin our examination of the Renaissance
with architecture.

Before 1400, architecture had remained Gothic,
although a Gothic modified in Italy by ideas of clarity and
simplicity. In the early Quattrocento in Florence, however,
we can begin to trace the development of a new style,
inspired by forms and ideas drawn from the civilizations of
Greek and Roman antiquity. When the architect and
humanist, Leonbattista Alberti, formulated the theoretical
principles of the new style in a series of books written some
decades later ( Della pittura , 1436), he referred to the inspi-
ration of antiquity at almost every point while simultane-
ously recognizing the importance of the new developments
being made by his contemporaries.

Alberti points to the dome of the Cathedral of Florence
(see fig. 6.7), then being completed by Filippo Brunelleschi
(1377-1446), as a supreme example of the new art:

Who could ... fail to praise [Filippo] the architect on seeing
here such a large structure, rising above the skies, ample to
cover with its shadow all the Tuscan people, and constructed
without the aid of centering or a great quantity of wood?
Since this work seems impossible of execution in our time, if
I judge rightly, it was probably unknown and unthought of
among the Ancients.

While Brunelleschi’s dome might seem to be the product
of a harmonious period dedicated to the kind of intel-
lectual activities that Alberti and his fellow humanists

Opposite: 6.1. FILIPPO BRUNELLESCHI. Interior of the Pazzi Chapel. Perhaps designed c. 1423-24; built 1442-c. 1465. The date “1461”
is inscribed on the cupola of the facade. Pietra serena pilasters and trim. Sta. Croce, Florence. Commissioned by Andrea di Guglielmo Pazzi.
After the death of Brunelleschi, the workshop of Bernardo Rossellino probably supervised the construction. The interior includes twelve
enameled terra-cotta medallions of the apostles by Luca della Robbia and four enameled terra-cotta medallions of the Evangelists attributed
by some to Brunelleschi. See also fig. 6.22.

THE RENAISSANCE BEGINS: ARCHITECTURE

I 59

praised, nothing could be further from the truth. Like so
many creative periods, the Early Renaissance (which
covered roughly the fifteenth century in most major
centers) was an era of conflict and of challenges only partly
met. Florence’s role in the modern world has often been
compared with that of Athens in antiquity, and the resem-
blance extends to the turbulence that both endured. Only
on the ideal plane of their works of art did the Florentines
achieve the harmony and dignity denied them by the reali-
ties of their epoch.

During the first third of the Quattrocento, the continued
existence of Florence as an independent state was in doubt.
In 1378 the guild system had come under attack in the
short-lived revolt of the Ciompi — the wool carders who
occupied the lowest rung of the social and economic
ladder. After the suppression of the Ciompi, the oligarchy
re-established its domination through the major guilds and
the Guelph party. The next threats originated outside the
city, from the duchy of Milan under the Visconti family,
who were determined to control large areas of the Italian
peninsula. By alliances, threats, intimidation, and con-
quest, Duke Giangaleazzo Visconti gained control of all
northern Italy with the exception of the republics of Genoa
and Venice, and of much of central Italy, including Siena,
Florence’s ancient rival; Florence was surrounded on three
sides. Eventually Giangaleazzo succeeded in cutting Flo-
rence off from the sea, and in the summer of 1402 he was
ready to descend on the city. With no alliances except an
uncertain one with Venice, modest resources, and no
standing army, the Florentines — armed, we might say, with
their commercial power and their courage — had prepared
for battle. At that moment the plague, always smoldering,
erupted among Giangaleazzo’s armies, and by September
he was dead and his empire had fallen apart. The Floren-
tines rejoiced at their deliverance and returned to their
commercial and intellectual activities.

Then another tyrant emerged. King Ladislaus of Naples,
having conquered Rome three times, threatened Florence
from the south. Again disease came to the aid of the Flo-
rentines when Ladislaus died in 1414. Many Florentines
ascribed these two deliverances to divine intervention. In
the 1420s, a third danger arose, and this time no disease
saved the Florentines. Filippo Maria, son of Giangaleazzo
Visconti, undertook to finish his father’s work. The Flo-
rentines suffered one defeat after another before they
managed to pull together the resources of the republic. In
1427, to obtain the sums necessary for the war, the Flo-
rentines instituted the catasto , a tax on wealth that was the
first graduated tax in history. The catasto was the ancestor
of the modern income tax although it did not tax income
per se but rather the productivity of the property — includ-
ing artists’ tools and materials — owned by each individual.

There was a system of exemptions and deductions and a
personal, written declaration was required. The large
numbers of these that survive from 1427 and later assess-
ments form a valuable source of information about Flo-
rentine citizens, although it should be no surprise to
discover that they frequently misstated information about
their wealth.

The war dragged on. Filippo Maria did not descend on
Florence, nor did the Florentines defeat him; a prolonged
stalemate developed. Nobody really won, yet danger over-
shadowed the people of Florence for years. In this atmos-
phere of crisis many of the important works of Early
Renaissance art were created. Military expenditure
notwithstanding, the Florentines were able and willing to
pay for costly structures and large works of sculpture in
marble or bronze. One reason for this seeming extrava-
gance was the inspiring civic orientation of the new works.
In an article written in the 1960s, Frederick Hartt argued
that these works galvanized popular support for the life-
and-death struggle of Florence and thus functioned as sol-
diers in the struggle against dictatorship. These new public
works were unusual in that they were meant for the indi-
vidual in the street, not for the pious in the churches. This
appeal to the individual citizen can be related to the civic
ideals promoted by contemporary humanists.

The Role of the Medici Family

The story of Florentine Quattrocento and Cinquecento art
is inseparable from the history of the Medici family. While
the family’s fortunes were founded by earlier members, it
was Giovanni di Bicci de’ Medici (1360-1429) who, as
banker to the papacy, probably the wealthiest institution in
Europe, greatly expanded the family’s resources. Giovanni
commissioned Brunelleschi to design a new sacristy for the
old church of San Lorenzo (now known as the Old Sac-
risty; see figs. 6.14-6.16), one of the earliest examples of a
Renaissance interior. Giovanni’s son Cosimo (1389-1464)
used the family’s wealth as a catalyst for developments in
Florentine art, commissioning the first Renaissance church
(San Lorenzo; see fig. 6.17); the first Renaissance palace
(see figs. 6.22-6.26); the first Renaissance monastery (San
Marco, which was rededicated in 1443 to St. Mark and the
Medici family patrons, St. Cosmas and St. Damian; see
figs. 6.27, 9.6); two Medici villas; and works of art by
Lorenzo Ghiberti, Donatello, Paolo Uccello, Desiderio da
Settignano, and, most likely, Antonio Pollaiuolo, Fra
Filippo Lippi, Domenico Veneziano, and the Flemish
painter Rogier van der Weyden. Cosimo may also have
been the patron of Donatello’s revolutionary bronze
David , the first large-scale nude sculpture since antiquity,
which is first documented in the Medici Palace courtyard

i 6 o

THE QUATTROCENTO

6.2. Portrait Medal ofCosimo de’ Medici, Pater Patriae, c. 1465.
Bronze, 3Vi6" (7.8 cm). National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
(Kress Collection). Created by order of the officials of the Commune
of Florence, presumably in the year after Cosimo’s death.

6.3. Reverse side of fig. 6.2. The allegorical figure represents
Florence, holding an orb and triple olive branch. The inscription
reads, in part, “Pax et Libertas” (“Peace and Liberty”). The medal
has been reproduced actual size.

(see figs. 6.26, 10.22). In addition to all this, he was a pow-
erful businessman, a subtle and cautious politician, a book
collector, the founder of the first public library, and an
important intellectual.

Politically, Cosimo was only a private citizen, but he was
widely recognized as the man who controlled Florentine
politics. After he returned from exile in 1433-34, he trans-
formed the ostensibly republican system so that only
Medici partisans could be selected for office. His artistic
patronage had implications within the political sphere.

The only known portrait of Cosimo painted during his
lifetime is in Benozzo Gozzoli’s Procession of the Magi , in
the private chapel in the Palazzo Medici (see figs. 12.1,
12.24). After he died, the commune coined a medal in
Cosimo’s honor that identified him as Pater Patriae ,
“Father of the Country,” in recognition of his contribution
to the city’s political and cultural life (figs. 6.2-6.3). In the
sixteenth century, Niccolo Machiavelli wrote that Cosimo
had been “The Prince of the Republic.” Because some later
Medici rulers were also named Cosimo, the Quattrocento
patron who played such an important role in Florentine
life and art later became known as Cosimo il Vecchio,
“Cosimo the Elder.”

Cosimo was succeeded by his son Piero the Gouty
(1416-1469), who was in turn succeeded by his son,
Lorenzo the Magnificent (1449-1492). In 1494, Girolamo
Savonarola and his followers drove Lorenzo’s son Piero the
Unlucky (1471-1503) from Florence. The Medici returned
in 1512, and ruled Florence until Anna Maria Louisa, the

childless daughter of Cosimo III, died in 1743, leaving the
family collections to the city of Florence.

Filippo Brunelleschi and Linear
Perspective

Before discussing Filippo Brunelleschi’s architectural inno-
vations, we need to consider his role in the development of
linear perspective. This system, which allowed painters
and sculptors to control the representation of illusionistic
space, became widely popular and is one of the hallmarks of
the early Renaissance style. Both Brunelleschi’s biographer,
Antonio Manetti, a follower who wrote later in the fif-
teenth century, and Giorgio Vasari, writing in the sixteenth,
credited Brunelleschi with the “invention” of this scheme.

The impetus seems to have been Brunelleschi’s need to
make measured architectural drawings. In 1403, after he
lost the competition for a set of bronze doors for the Flo-
rentine Baptistery to Lorenzo Ghiberti (see figs. 7.3-7. 6),
Brunelleschi, who had trained as a goldsmith, abandoned
the art of sculpture and dedicated himself to architecture.
Vasari wrote that Brunelleschi went to Rome to study and
to measure the remains of ancient architecture. He proba-
bly brought back to Florence measured drawings, views,
and details of the great Roman monuments.

The perspective scheme that Brunelleschi developed in
Rome allowed him to make drawings that captured both
the appearance of an ancient ruin and, by including a

THE RENAISSANCE BEGINS: ARCHITECTURE * l6l

6.4. Reconstruction and diagram of Brunelleschi’s perspective demonstration. Model made by Virgil Duemler, “painting” by Lew Minter, and
burnished silver panels by Francis Nowalk and Frank Mance; thanks also to Marco del Bufalo.

figure or some other indication of scale, the measurements
of its components. The utility of such a scheme to an archi-
tect is obvious, and its usefulness to painters and to sculp-
tors working in relief was incalculable. Manetti tells us
that Brunelleschi executed two now lost paintings to
demonstrate the verisimilitude that perspective made pos-
sible. One of these represented the Baptistery of Florence
and surrounding buildings as seen from just inside the
cathedral door in a view similar to figure 2.33; figure 6.4
is a conjectural reconstruction of Brunelleschi’s device and
painting with diagrams to demonstrate his ideas. The sky
was rendered in burnished silver to reflect the real sky and
thus complete the sense of reality. While the illusionism
of the painting itself seems to have been impressive,

Brunelleschi also devised a viewing method that controlled
the observer’s experience. Holding the work by a handle
and looking through a peephole in the back of the paint-
ing, the observer would view the image reflected in a
mirror of burnished silver that was held a cubit (the dis-
tance from the elbow to the end of the middle finger,
approximately 18 inches) in front of the painted surface.
By forcing the observer to view the painting in the mirror,
Brunelleschi was guaranteeing that the observer’s eye was
exactly opposite the vanishing point, a control related to
the technique of making measured architectural drawings,
for which the observer’s position in space was a prime
determinant. In addition, the peephole forced the viewer to
use monocular rather than binocular vision. The device of

162

THE QUATTROCENTO

6.5. LEONARDO DA VINCI. Perspective diagram from manuscript
A. c. 1490-92. Ink on paper, 87 x 5*4 m (21 .3 x 14.8 cm). Biblio-
iheque de l’Institut de France, Paris: Manuscript no. 21721, p. 41 .

rbe mirror also meant that the observer could see only the
illusion; the reality that surrounds a painting and reduces
irs illusionistic effect was concealed. The painting was
intended to be viewed from a specific location inside the
cathedral doors so the observer could lower the mirror and
check that the painted illusion was accurate.

Whereas this first painting offered a frontal view of the
baptistery’s octagonal structure with the main facade par-
allel to the pictorial surface, in his second demonstration
painting Brunelleschi represented the Palazzo dei Priori
from an angle that would bring out the mass of the struc-
ture, from a viewpoint similar to that seen in figure 2.40.
Once again Brunelleschi found a way to have a naturalis-
tic sky: in this panel, the area above the architectural struc-
tures was cut away so that the real sky, with its clouds and
changing light patterns, was visible behind the painted
illusion. Exactly when Brunelleschi created these works is
unknown, but the first works that show the influence of
linear perspective date from the late 1410s or early 1420s.

Figure 6.5 demonstrates how a painter, in this case
Leonardo da Vinci, created a small drawing of an illusion-
istic space (for a more developed example by Leonardo, see
fig. 16.17). Linear perspective is based on the assumption
that parallel lines receding from us seem to converge at a
point on the horizon, as seen in Leonardo’s sketch. These
lines are orthogonals and the point where they meet is the
vanishing point. The lines parallel to the pictorial surface
are transversals; Alberti describes how they are derived in
his treatise on painting (see pp. 248-49). Alberti suggests
that the artist establish the height of a human being in the
foreground before dividing the base line into units corre-
sponding to one-third of this height. This use of the human
figure then allowed the artist to create figures of appropri-
ate scale throughout the illusionistic space.

A print from a treatise by the sixteenth-century architect
Giacomo da Vignola (fig. 6.6) shows how the observer’s
viewpoint is crucial for understanding why an object is
depicted as it is within the artist’s illusion. If the viewer
were to stand on a ladder, for example, or to kneel, the
geometrical form would look different. It is interesting that
Vignola’s demonstration shows how to represent an octagon;
Brunelleschi’s painting of the Florentine Baptistery or a
description of that work may have influenced him.

6.6. GIACOMO DA
VIGNOLA. Perspective
diagram from his Le Due
Regole della Prospetiva
Practica (Bologna, 1583).

THE RENAISSANCE BEGINS: ARCHITECTURE • I 6 3

The Dome of Florence Cathedral

Brunelleschi’s dome for the cathedral still dominates the
city of Florence and the surrounding Arno Valley (fig 6.7;
see also figs. 1.7-1. 8). We do not know exactly when
Brunelleschi designed the dome, but we do know that his
father had served on the Duomo committee of 1367 and
therefore the son must have been brought up with the
model that was designed at that time (see p. 69). Both
Brunelleschi and Ghiberti were part of a 1404 committee
that required the architect Giovanni d’Ambrogio to lower
his projected semidomes to their present level. Vasari
wrote that in 1407 Brunelleschi advised the agency in
charge of the cathedral — the Opera del Duomo — to “lift
the weight off the shoulders of the semidomes,” urging
them to insert a drum between the central dome and the
surrounding semidomes. In 1410, the Opera authorized
such a drum and a surviving wooden model seems to rep-
resent this stage. In 1417, the Opera hired Brunelleschi as
an adviser, and three years later his masonry model of the
dome was accepted.

We must recognize the difficulties Brunelleschi faced, for
the cathedral’s basic plan, begun by Arnolfo di Cambio
and enlarged in the Trecento by his successors, could not
be changed (see fig. 2.39). The decorative Gothic surfacing
of the exterior was largely complete; the nave, choir, and
transepts had been built, and the size of the octagonal base
for the crowning dome established. The idea of round
windows (oculi) instead of Gothic pointed ones for the
clerestory had been adopted in 1367, and the construction
of this area was apparently completed by 1390.

The harmony, clarity, and simplicity that is characteris-
tic of Brunelleschi’s architectural sensibilities is evident in
the surface decoration he designed for the exterior of the
clerestory of the cathedral and the drum below the dome
(see figs. 1.8, 6.7), in which the oculi seem superimposed
over rows of rectangular panels. Rectangles and circles are
elements of architectural draftsmanship created with the
compass and square. Brunelleschi’s architecture has been
called “paper architecture,” and to some degree it does
preserve in stone the process of laying out architectural
shapes on paper. Indeed, these rectangular panels convey

6.7. FILIPPO BRUNELLESCHI. Dome,
Cathedral, Florence. 1420-36; cathedral
consecrated March 25, 1436; lantern
completed 1436-71; exterior decoration
of lower drum completed 1452-59. Dome
commissioned by the Arte della Lana and
the Opera del Duomo. Construction
materials include pietra forte (local
limestone) and brick; decorative materials
include white marble from Carrara, dark
green marble from Prato, and pink marble.
Every will drawn up in Florence had to
include a donation to the construction of
the cathedral.

164 * THE QUATTROCENTO

the principles and message behind Brunelleschi’s architec-
ture, with its simplicity and order, clear-cut proportions,
and carefully balanced relationships.

The dome with which Brunelleschi completed the Flo-
rentine Cathedral is more difficult to relate to Renaissance
ideals, since its shape suggests an inherent tension that
relates it more to a Gothic vault than to the hemispherical
shape of the dome of the Pantheon (see fig. 1.2), which
Brunelleschi had studied in Rome. The construction of the
dome, begun in 1420, was completed in 1436, with a tem-
porary octagonal oculus at the summit until the lantern
could be built. Despite the difficulty of conceiving and
constructing an enormous dome for a building designed by
others, Brunelleschi managed to impose mathematical
order on the construction, for the dome as completed is
exactly half as wide as it is tall: 72 Florentine braccia wide
(approximately 138 feet or 42 meters) by 144 braccia tall
i276 feet or 84 meters). Such measurements are crucial for
understanding Brunelleschi’s approach to architecture,
even if they are not immediately apparent when we look at
this particular monument.

6.8. FILIPPO BRUNELLESCHI. Buttress in the shape of an
exedra, Cathedral, Florence. 1440s.

In contrast to the dome, its lantern and the four semi-
cylindrical exedrae that function as buttresses (figs.
6. 8-6.9) are executed in a different style, without any ref-
erence to Gothicism. The exedrae are based on circular
Roman temples that Brunelleschi had seen in and near
Rome, but at the Duomo the columns are paired — a
favorite Brunelleschian motif — and alternate with shell-
headed niches. The beautiful proportional relationships of
capital to shaft, base, and entablature reveal Brunelleschi’s
subtle understanding of ancient architectural membering,
undoubtedly based on the drawings he had made in Rome.

The lantern, which brings the shapes and forces of the
building to a climax, abounds in variations on classical
vocabulary. The eight ribs of the dome culminate in eight
buttresses, each surmounted by a volute. Each angle is
decorated with a Corinthian pilaster, while the window
arches between them rest on capitals of a design unique to
Brunelleschi but based on ancient examples. Each buttress
is pierced by a portal-like opening surmounted by a classi-
cizing shell form. Brunelleschi died before the lantern was
begun, and some details may be attributed to Michelozzo

6.9. FILIPPO BRUNELLESCHI and MICHELOZZO DI
BARTOLOMMEO. Lantern, Cathedral, Florence. After 1446.
White Carrara marble. The gilded copper ball, made in the workshop
of Andrea del Verrocchio, was raised into place, accompanied by the
singing of a hymn in honor of the Virgin Mary, in May 1471.

* 1 6 5

THE RENAISSANCE BEGINS: ARCHITECTURE

di Bartolommeo, who finished it. The lantern culminates in
a burst of delightful forms: the attic — alternating niches
and balusters surmounted by balls — supports a fluted
cone, a gold orb, and a cross.

No one knows how Brunelleschi intended to complete
the section separating the drum and the dome, which is
now a stretch of rough masonry except for the gallery on
one side (fig. 6.10). Baccio d’Agnolo won a Cinquecento
competition to design this gallery. After one section had
been completed, Michelangelo reportedly compared
Baccio’s design derisively to a child’s toy — the delicate
miniature wooden cages in which Florentine children keep
crickets — and work came to a stop. The bare masonry is
perhaps preferable, for Baccio’s gallery, despite its hand-
some classical forms, is out of scale with Brunelleschi’s
design (the gallery is shown as if completed in figure 1.8).

6.10. Modern cut-away model of Brunelleschi’s dome, Cathedral,
Florence, made in 1995 by Franco Gizdulich. The scale of the model
is 1:20. Florence, Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza. Note the
two hidden vertical ribs.

Writing in the sixteenth century, Francesco Bocchi stated: “In truth,
knowledgeable artists cannot well decide whether this sovereign
building is more beautiful or more strong, for joined together, these
two things compete with each other for first place, and yet are at the
same time in harmony in generating wonder and amazement.”

Brunelleschi’s fame among his contemporaries was
based largely on his ability to solve the engineering and
constructional problems the dome posed (fig. 6.11). It was
the largest dome constructed since the Roman Pantheon
and no higher dome had ever been built. The officials of
the Opera del Duomo were especially concerned about the
colossal expense of erecting the centering of timber that
was the traditional means of supporting masonry during a
dome’s construction; the usual method involved building
timber scaffolding from the ground to support the struc-
ture as it was being built. Timber centering on the scale of
the Florentine dome would have used up an entire forest.
But remember Alberti’s praise that the dome was “con-
structed without the aid of centering or a great quantity of
wood.” Brunelleschi’s scheme had the masons working
from movable scaffolding supported by recently completed
sections of the dome. Beams that could be lifted as the
work progressed supported narrow platforms.

Brunelleschi was also noted for the “machines” he
invented to facilitate construction. Traditionally, masons
would have had to carry the building materials on their
shoulders to great heights, but Brunelleschi invented a
hoisting machine, the “Great Hoist”, that was such a
success that the Opera del Duomo had to publish an order
forbidding Florentines from riding it for fun.

On the exterior, white marble ribs divide the dome into
eight segments. These ribs, like those that articulate the
cross-vaults of the traditional Gothic interior (see figs.
2.34, 2.38, 5.15), give the dome a Gothic character appro-
priate for a structure begun during that period. Although
they are not matched by ribs on the interior surface of the
dome, structurally the external ribs extend from exterior to
interior (with the exception of openings for doors). They
provide the basic skeletal structure that is an important
part of the dome’s stability, joining other vertical and hor-
izontal elements in the dome’s internal structure that are
not visible to eye.

The dome was constructed using inner and outer shells,
as is seen in figure 6.11. This double-shell structure made
the dome lighter and provided access during construction.
In addition, the space between the two shells created a pro-
tective barrier between exterior and interior; a leak in the
outer fabric, for example, would drain into the opening
rather than go through into the interior and possibly desta-
bilize the structure.

FAch of the eight segments between the external ribs
enclosed two more vertical supporting members (here
called hidden ribs), making a total of twenty-four ribs (see
fig. 6.10). Within each segment, short horizontal ribs join
the hidden ribs to the external ribs. These interlocked ver-
tical and horizontal elements provide the basic structural
system for the dome. The outer surface, covered with roof

i 6 6

THE QUATTROCENTO

J Doors on various levels
that allowed access to
the stairs between inner
and outer domes.

-□ Stone chain (total of
four).

-□ Horizontal ribs
(total of nine).

Brick construction.

Wooden chain.

Stone masonry
construction.

b. 1 1 . Cut-away reconstruction of the Duomo, with two examples of
Brunelleschi’s “machines”: the “Great Hoist” (developed 1420-21),
below, and the “Great Crane” (developed 1423), above (after
Howard Saalman, 1980).

Brunelleschi’s Great Hoist can be reconstructed through drawings
3> later artists and engineers. Oxen walking in circles revolved a
mechanism that, through a series of gears, turned drums to which
'opes were attached. As the ropes were wound onto the drums,
building materials were lifted into place. Since oxen cannot be made
I© walk backward, Brunelleschi devised a gear that reversed the

process so that the oxen’s movement could also gradually unwind the
ropes, thus allowing goods to be lowered without having to unyoke
the oxen to turn them around. Cranes (known in the documents as
castelli , or castles) had been used earlier in the cathedral construc-
tion. Brunelleschi developed his Great Crane in 1423, when a longer
working arm and greater flexibility in positioning was needed. After
construction materials were raised by the hoist, the crane could move
them into place on the rising dome.

The section of Brunelleschi’s dome is after Giovanni Fanelli and
Michele Fanelli, 2004.

THE RENAISSANCE BEGINS: ARCHITECTURE * I 67

6.12. View between the inner and outer shells of Brunelleschi’s dome,
Cathedral, Florence, showing, on the right, the herringbone
brickwork that gave it greater structural integrity.

The passage between the two shells made it possible for those
building the dome to reach the height of construction. The passage has
been widened at some points so that visitors to Florence can ascend
in order to study the dome’s construction and enjoy the panoramic
view from the lantern. The climb from ground level is 463 steps.

tiles, should be thought of as a protective cover for the
internal structure, while inside, the ceiling — frescoed in the
sixteenth century — hides the internal structure from view.
As solid parts of the dome, these surfaces may slightly
increase the structure’s stability but they are not a part of
the construction per se.

While this would seem to complete our brief examina-
tion of this complex structure, there is yet another aspect
of Brunelleschi’s dome that must be recognized. A dome —
like an arch and vault — exerts an outward thrust that has
to be contained, usually by buttressing. In Brunelleschi’s
cupola, the outward thrust is in part constrained by a
series of encircling “chains” hidden within the structure.

There are four stone chains and one in wood, their indi-
vidual “links” — blocks of stone or great wooden timbers —
held together by iron links. In figure 6.10, the narrow
horizontal elements that cross the center segment indicate
two of the four stone chains; the others are near the base
of the dome and near the lantern. In the section (see fig.
6.11), the wooden chain is shown in red, while the four
stone chains are blue.

While the lower levels of the dome were constructed in
stone, the upper areas were laid in brick to lighten the
weight that had to be supported (fig. 6.12). Rather than
having the bricks laid in concentric circles, Brunelleschi
designed a method of interrupting each row of horizontally
laid bricks at certain points with a single brick laid
vertically; in the next row another vertical brick was laid
next to the first and so on. The resulting interlocked
herringbone pattern strengthened the construction. An
example of this innovative brickwork is visible on the right
in figure 6.12.

Brunelleschi’s dome is the predominant symbol of
Florence. It was under this dome in 1439 that the heads of
the two branches of the Christian Church — the Roman
pope and Greek patriarch — signed a treaty intended to end
the centuries-old schism that divided them (a truce that did
not endure). For Florentines, the dome’s meaning is sug-
gested in a phrase still heard today when a citizen declares
“Io son fiorentino di Cupolone” (“I am a Florentine from
the great dome”).

The Ospedale degli Innocenti

The most striking embodiment of Brunelleschi’s style in
the crucial years around 1420 was the Ospedale degli
Innocenti (“Hospital of the Innocents”), which provided
orphans and abandoned children housing, education, and
vocational training until they reached the age of eighteen
(fig. 6.13). These children were given the last name Inno-
centi, and the role of this hospital in Florentine history is
revealed by the large number of citizens today who still
bear this name.

Despite the classicizing nature of the architectural ele-
ments in Brunelleschi’s Ospedale, his use of arches sup-
ported on columns has no ancient precedent; in antiquity
columns were used only to support flat entablatures.
Brunelleschi’s models for this motif, however, seem to have
been two Romanesque structures in Florence that during
the Renaissance were thought to be ancient: the Baptistery
of Florence (see fig. 2.33) and the Church of San Miniato.
While both structures incorporate ancient spoglia (remains
of earlier structures), certain design elements betray their
origins in the medieval period. Brunelleschi can be forgiven
for accepting the local tradition that these were venerable

i 68

THE QUATTROCENTO

6.13. FILIPPO BRUNELLESCHI. Ospedale degli Innocenti. Begun 1419; completed mid- fifteenth century. Pietra serena columns and trim.
Piazza della SS. Annunziata, Florence. Building commissioned by the Arte della Seta. The enameled terra-cotta medallions by Andrea della
Robbia (1487) represent infants wrapped in swaddling clothes as a reference to the “Innocents” killed by the order of Herod.

buildings, but his frequent use of arches supported on
columns helps to explain why his structures could never be
mistaken for ancient buildings despite his careful revival of
ancient architectural details.

Brunelleschi’s interest in measure and proportion
explains the harmony of his design. Since he was obliged
W) be absent from Florence during a crucial phase of the
hospital’s construction, Brunelleschi provided the builders
with something they had never seen before: a measured
scale drawing. According to Manetti, the builders had dif-
::culty with the measurements and wished they had been
provided with the customary wooden model. In the docu-
ments Brunelleschi’s name eventually disappears, and a
i»ew supervisor made changes in his plan. Only the arcade
of the loggia and the Corinthian pilasters that flank the
terminal arches are as Brunelleschi planned them. The
>econd-story pilasters that would have matched those on
:be lower level were never executed.

Nevertheless, Brunelleschi’s role is apparent in the
modular design that controls both plan and elevation. His
>ystem of proportions is based on the sixth-century BCE
writings of Pythagoras, who had noted that when a
stretched string is plucked it vibrates to produce a note,
and that when the string is measured and plucked at points
-hat correspond to exact divisions by whole numbers —
such as A, 'A, % — the vibrations will produce a harmonious
chord. Brunelleschi’s use of a modular, mathematical
system is not new; St. Augustine drew connections between

mathematics, music, and architecture, relating all three
to the harmony of God’s universe (see p. 155). In
Brunelleschi’s use of the Pythagorean scheme, the distance
between the centers of the columns is equal to the distance
between the center of a column and the back wall of the
loggia; this means that each unit — each bay — is a perfect
square. This module is the base to which others are related
in the relationships of one to two, one to five, and two to
five to determine the height of the loggia, the width of the
principal doors, the height of the second-story windows,
the width of the smaller doors and windows, the height of
the architrave, the sizes of capitals and bases, the propor-
tions of the interior rooms, and other design elements.

The appearance of Brunelleschi’s rationally planned
buildings is different from that of ancient Roman struc-
tures, even if these antique monuments provided many of
the elements that inspired his new architecture. Character-
istically, Brunelleschi preferred smooth column shafts such
as those used in the Florentine Romanesque to the fluted
ones usual in antique monuments, although it should be
noted here that the monolithic columns of the Pantheon
(see fig. 1.2) are unusual in not being fluted. He reserved
fluting for pilasters, such as those that frame the outer
arches of the Innocenti loggia; it should be no surprise to
learn that the columns are three-fifths the height of these
pilasters. The vaults of Brunelleschi’s loggia are not the
ribbed cross-vaults characteristic of the Gothic; he turned
his back on that tradition, using domical vaults instead.

THE RENAISSANCE BEGINS: ARCHITECTURE • I 69

Brunelleschi’s Sacristy for
San Lorenzo

The sacristy Brunelleschi designed for San Lorenzo is now
usually called the Old Sacristy to distinguish it from the
later, second sacristy designed by Michelangelo, which is
also known as the Medici Chapel (figs. 6.14, 18.4). Gio-
vanni di Bicci de’ Medici commissioned Brunelleschi’s
sacristy as an addition to the old Basilica of San Lorenzo.
With Giovanni’s fortune supporting the work, it proceeded
rapidly. When completed in 1428 or 1429, the sacristy was
the first Renaissance architectural space that could actually
be entered and experienced. In plan, the interior is an exact
square, extended on one side by a square altar space
flanked by two chambers. Fluted Corinthian pilasters, an
entablature, and an arch framing the altar space articulate
this side of the sacristy (fig. 6.15).

Here again Brunelleschi used modules to create a simple
system of proportions: the height of the lower story to the
top of the architrave equals both the distance from the
architrave to the base of the dome and the distance from
there to the base of the lantern (fig. 6.16). Each story, then,
is related to the height of the entire building in the ratio of
one to three. While this description of the building’s
proportions may seem academic, the end result of these
unifying relationships is a structure that conveys a sense of
harmony typical of Renaissance ideals.

Donatello added sculptures — bronze doors, reliefs filling
the niches over the doorways, and medallions — that chal-
lenge the lightness and clarity of Brunelleschi’s design. The
architect apparently protested, and this is one of several
occasions when artists of the Renaissance did not see
eye to eye. Considering the gulf between the serenity of
Brunelleschi’s ideas and Donatello’s interest in powerful
figures and dramatic narratives, a clash between the two in
terms of style is hardly surprising.

San Lorenzo and Santo Spirito

Brunelleschi was also responsible for a revolution in the
plan of church interiors and in the relationship between
church buildings and the urban complexes surrounding
them. He was commissioned to build two major churches
in Florence — San Lorenzo and Santo Spirito — and in each
case he also submitted a design for an adjacent piazza.
Unfortunately he never saw either church completed, and
his plans for their piazzas were not followed. Nevertheless,
Brunelleschi’s ideas for church interiors and his vision of
harmonious urban design remained influential for centuries.

Neither church has a clear building history, but it seems
that both took shape in Brunelleschi’s mind at about the

A. BRUNELLESCHI'S
SACRISTY

B. MICHELANGELO’S
SACRISTY

0 20 40 60 feet

h+++l 1 1

0 10 20 METERS

6.14. FILIPPO BRUNELLESCHI. Plan of S. Lorenzo, Florence,
including First (Old) Sacristy (see figs. 6.15-6.16) and New Sacristy
or Medici Chapel by Michelangelo (see figs. 18.4-18.7).
Brunelleschi’s work was commissioned by Giovanni di Bicci de’
Medici and Cosimo de’ Medici. See also figs. 18.2-18.3.

6.15. FILIPPO BRUNELLESCHI. Sacristy, S. Lorenzo, Florence.
1421-28. Pietra serena pilasters and trim, 38x38’ (11.6 x 11. 6m).
Commissioned by Giovanni di Bicci de’ Medici. Sculpture by
Donatello. After 1428-c. 1440. Sculpture probably commissioned
by Cosimo de’ Medici.

17 0

THE QUATTROCENTO

&.16. Plan and section of Brunelleschi’s Sacristy, S. Lorenzo, Florence,
demonstrating the modular scheme.

'-ime time. San Lorenzo had the advantage of Medici
"atronage and consequently benefited from more expen-
se materials and elaborate detailing, but it was designed
erected piecemeal and its architect had to struggle with
^re-existing buildings, including his own sacristy. At Santo
spirito, on the other hand, Brunelleschi could plan an
entirely new structure. In designing both churches he
cnored the complex vaulting systems and compound piers
: late medieval architecture. It seems that he wanted to
'-"urn to the simple, three-aisled plan of Early Christian
"isilicas in Rome, which he probably thought was
: simplified in the Romanesque church of Santi Apostoli in

Florence, with its nave arcade of ancient Roman columns
and capitals.

Corinthian columns of great simplicity and beauty
support the nave arcades of San Lorenzo (fig. 6.17) and
Santo Spirito (figs. 6.18-6.19). To achieve additional
height, Brunelleschi placed impost blocks — square blocks
of stone — above the Corinthian capitals (he had used these
earlier in the exedrae of the cathedral; see fig. 6.8). The
clerestories have round-arched windows with clear glass.
Brunelleschi used the dark gray stone the Florentines call
pietra serena for columns, capitals, and trim, while all the
stucco surfaces are painted white. The result is a harmo-
nious yet austere alternation of gray and white that
emphasizes the modular relationships and interconnec-
tions between the parts of the structure. This “two-tone”
system continued in use for both domestic and ecclesiasti-
cal Florentine interiors into the nineteenth and early twen-
tieth centuries. The side aisles have domical vaults, like
the Innocenti loggia, while coffers with carved and gilded
moldings and rosettes decorate the ceiling of the nave at
San Lorenzo, with similar painted designs at Santo Spirito.

The modular structure at San Lorenzo and Santo Spirito
is similar and, as a result, the spatial effect of the two inte-
riors is almost identical. If we take one square side-aisle
bay as the module, then each nave bay is two modules
wide and the crossing is four modules square (see figs.
6.14, 6.19). The bays of the aisles are four times as tall as
they are wide, and the nave is twice as tall as the aisles. The
width of the nave equals the height of the nave arcade. The
floor pattern at San Lorenzo emphasizes these relation-
ships, reinforcing the modular system, but this was not
carried out at Santo Spirito. The double lines of San
Lorenzo’s pattern also reference the width of the square
column bases called plinths, establishing that the width of
a single plinth is one-fifth the distance between them. The
visitor is everywhere made aware of the geometric grace of
the individual shapes and of their function in the har-
monic, Pythagorean structure of the church.

A summary of the construction of both churches helps
explain their differences. In 1418 it was decided to extend
the medieval church of San Lorenzo with a new choir and
transept. Construction began in 1421, but Brunelleschi
was not called in until about 1425, when the foundations
for the choir and transepts had already been laid. He
replaced the octagonal Gothic piers of the crossing with
square piers faced by Corinthian pilasters. At first, replac-
ing the old nave was apparently not under consideration.
In 1434, houses flanking the church were torn down with
the idea of creating a piazza. This may have been when
Brunelleschi was asked to create a plan for replacing the
nave. His design did not include the many family chapels
that now line the side aisles, which were added after 1470.

THE RENAISSANCE BEGINS: ARCHITECTURE * I 7 I

Left: 6.17. FILIPPO BRUNELLESCHI.
Nave and choir, S. Lorenzo, Florence. Choir
and transept begun c. 1425; nave designed
1434( ?); construction 1442 to 1470s. Pietra
serena columns and trim. Commissioned by
Giovanni di Bicci de’ Medici and Cosimo de’
Medici.

A gift of 40,000 florins from Cosimo funded
the building of the church, in exchange for an
agreement that he could be buried in front
of the high altar and that the Medici arms
would be the only arms to appear in the
transept or choir. Later, Cosimo’s grandson
Lorenzo il Magnifico would write in his
Ricordi (diary) that between 1434, the year
Cosimo returned from exile, and 1471, seven
years after Cosimo’s death, the Medici family
had spent the enormous sum of 663,755 gold
florins on alms, taxes, and public buildings.

6.18. FILIPPO BRUNELLESCHI. Nave and choir, Sto. Spirito, Florence. Model submitted 1434-36(?); construction 1446 to late fifteenth
century. Pietra serena columns and trim. The tabernacle over the main altar is a later addition not planned by Brunelleschi.

17 2

THE QUATTROCENTO

6.19. FILIPPO BRUNELLESCHI. Plan of Sto. Spirito, Florence,
as originally intended; dotted lines indicate present exterior walls.

At the same time, Brunelleschi was asked to design a
grandiose church at Santo Spirito to replace a small thir-
teenth-century structure. Lateral chapels were planned
from the beginning and Brunelleschi’s design, probably
dated to 1434-36, had semicircular chapels around the
perimeter and even across the facade. He intended that the
apsidal shape of these chapels be visible on the exterior,
establishing a play of curved forms against flat upper walls
and geometric roof lines that would give an effect of sculp-
tural richness. There could scarcely have been a stronger
departure from the “paper architecture” of his early work.
Unfortunately, flat exterior walls now fill the areas
between the chapels, and the four units on the building’s
ta^ade were never built.

Compared with the flatness and lightness of San
Lorenzo, the interior of Santo Spirito produces an impres-
sion of mass and majesty. Half columns separate chapels
that are smooth and unbroken except for a long, arched
window. This is only one example of an alternation
between massive, convex gray forms and elusive, concave
white ones that we experience throughout the structure.
Brunelleschi’s original plan called for changing the orien-
tation of the new church so that it would face the Arno
across a wide piazza, but the citizens responsible for
carrying out the construction from public funds did not
accept this bold stroke of urban planning.

San Lorenzo did not enjoy a state subsidy, and only in
1442 did Cosimo de’ Medici agree to finance the continu-

ation of the long-delayed building. Brunelleschi was des-
tined to see his great architectural vistas only in imagina-
tion; when he died in February 1446, not one column for
either of his basilicas had been quarried. Under the super-
vision of Michelozzo di Bartolommeo, work dragged on at
San Lorenzo (with some errors of judgment) until after
1470; at Santo Spirito it extended even longer, and under
a number of architects. We have no idea how Brunelleschi
intended either facade to appear. Today Santo Spirito has a
simple plastered fagade, while that of San Lorenzo, in spite
of Michelangelo’s dream of completing it (see fig. 18.3),
remains a wall of unfinished masonry.

Santa Maria degli Angeli

A little building that shows a new direction in
Brunelleschi’s work is the chapel of the monastery of Santa
Maria degli Angeli, the Florentine seat of the Camaldolite
Order (see p. 145), whose prior was the celebrated human-
ist Ambrogio Traversari. The foundations were begun in
1434, but the current structure dates almost entirely from
1937. Only the ground plan and early drawings (fig. 6.20)

6.20. FILIPPO BRUNELLESCHI. Plan of Sta. Maria degli Angeli,
Florence. Anonymous drawing after Brunelleschi’s design.
Construction begun 1434; left incomplete until the 1930s.
Commissioned by the Arte di Calimala, executor for the heirs of
Pippo Spano (see p. 274).

THE RENAISSANCE BEGINS: ARCHITECTURE * 173

give any hint of how Brunelleschi’s building might have
looked. Intended for a community of about forty monks, it
would have had little space for public worship. The octag-
onal plan called for chapels on seven of the eight sides and
a dome over the central area. The oval chapels extending
around a central domed area would have continued the
interest in bold massing Brunelleschi first demonstrated at
Santo Spirito, while on the exterior niches would have
created a similar effect. Even more importantly, in this
project we witness the first step in the direction of the
central plan, which was to reach its culmination in the
High Renaissance projects for a new St. Peter’s in Rome
(see figs. 17.11-17.15, 20.9-20.11).

The Pazzi Chapel

The powerful Pazzi family commissioned Brunelleschi’s
Chapter House, which is also known as the Pazzi Chapel,
for the monastery of Santa Croce. Although the structure
may have been designed about 1423-24, construction did
not start until 1442. The unfinished facade is only partially
based on Brunelleschi’s design and is not illustrated here.
The plan and interior (figs. 6.1, 6.21) represent an
amplification and consolidation of the principles demon-
strated in the San Lorenzo Sacristy; like the latter, the Pazzi
Chapel is composed of two stories supporting a dome.
Here the resemblance ceases. The central square is
extended on either side by half a square, probably because
the Franciscan chapter of Santa Croce required a large
meeting space. As a result, the building is twice as wide as
it is deep. The center is roofed by a twelve-ribbed dome,
the sides by barrel vaults. The walls are articulated by
Corinthian pilasters. Every lower element has a continua-
tion above.

5 10 METERS

-I !

6.21. FILIPPO BRUNELLESCHI. Plan of Pazzi Chapel,
Sta. Croce, Florence (see figs. 2.37, 6.1).

Brunelleschi’s module is clearly indicated by the
pilasters, so that the space between the two pilasters on
each side wall (not illustrated here) is two modules wide.
The square altar area is likewise two modules wide and
deep. The height of the pilasters with the cornice is four
modules. The consistency of part to part is clearer here
than at the San Lorenzo Sacristy and like the main church
at San Lorenzo, the modular system is diagramed in the
floor pattern.

The proportions of the three stories — architectural
order, arches, and dome — are not identical, as they are in
the San Lorenzo Sacristy. Here they diminish as they rise,
each story decreasing by one half-module. The result is
that the Corinthian pilasters dominate the interior to
an extent not seen in the San Lorenzo Sacristy. As in
Brunelleschi’s other works, the decorative details are set
out in pietra serena against white stucco walls, vaults, and
dome. Color is provided by the stained-glass window over
the altar, the glazed terra-cotta reliefs in the medallions —
particularly the sky blue of their backgrounds — and the
Pazzi coats of arms in the pendentives.

At this point, one might bear in mind the admonition
of the contemporary Florentine humanist Giannozzo
Manetti, who stated in his book On the Dignity and Excel-
lency of Man that the truths of the Christian religion are as
dear and self-evident as the axioms of mathematics. The
rational, ordered clarity of Brunelleschi’s religious build-
ings may disappoint those who, like the critic John Ruskin,
think that the soaring Gothic is the most appropriate style
for a Christian church. Yet, when understood in their
context, Brunelleschi’s churches are religious structures of
the highest order. The Florentine humanists thought that
geometric principles could unlock mysteries at the heart of
the universe and reveal the intentions of a God who was
eminently understandable and had created the universe for
human enjoyment.

The Medici Palace and Michelozzi
di Bartolommeo

According to Vasari and other sources, Brunelleschi sub-
mitted a model for a new house to Cosimo de’ Medici. It
has been suggested that this house would have been situ-
ated on the Piazza San Lorenzo, its portal opposite that of
the church, and that the two buildings would have faced
each other across the large square. Vasari reported that
Cosimo rejected Brunelleschi’s proposal as too sumptuous
and that Brunelleschi responded by smashing the model.
The story suggests that Cosimo did not wish his residence
to be so splendid that it would make him appear what he
in fact was — the ruler of Florence. Cosimo had been exiled

174

THE QUATTROCENTO

in 1433-34, but by 1446, when the palace was begun, he
had reinforced his power by political maneuvers. Although
the machinery of the republic remained superficially intact,
it was controlled by him.

The designation of the Medici house as a palace does not
indicate any special status. “ Palazzo ” is used to refer to
any large building; even the modest town houses of some
Florentine merchants are called palazzi . But the dimen-
sions of the Medici Palace (figs. 6.22-6.26) are by no
means modest. Each story is more than 20 feet (6.1 meters)
high, and the entire structure, to the top of the cornice,
rises more than 70 feet (21 meters) above the street.

It is presumed that Cosimo’s architect was Michelozzo
di Bartolommeo (1396-1472), but at least one scholar has
reattributed the work to Brunelleschi because of its origi-
nality; the exceptional nature of the palace makes it diffi-
cult to identify the architect.

After the Riccardi family bought it in the mid-
seventeenth century, the palace was extended and its orig-
inal proportions transformed; figures 6.22-6.23 suggests
the cubic nature of the original. We must also imagine the
building without Michelangelo’s pedimented windows on
the ground floor, shown in the print and still in place today,
which were added in the sixteenth century to provide
the family with greater security. In the more informal
atmosphere of the Quattrocento, these arches had been

open, although they could be closed by large wooden doors.
To modern eyes, perhaps the most striking aspect of the
Medici Palace is its fortresslike appearance, created by the
rough-cut stones of the ground floor; the rustication of
these blocks is imitated from that of such ancient Roman
monuments as the Forum of Augustus in Rome, which in
the Renaissance was believed to have been the Palace of
Caesar. Even in turbulent fifteenth-century Florence, such
rustication can have had no defensive nature; it may
simply have been intended to convey to the Florentine
passerby the Tuscan dignity and antique fortitude of the
ITouse of Medici.

The interior has been modified, but the lucidity of the
general outlines of the plan and the regularity of the
palace’s basic shape were new to Florentine palace archi-
tecture and may have been inspired by the description of
ancient Roman houses given by Vitruvius, the first-century
BCE architect and theorist. Later plans of the ground floor
and piano nobile (figs. 6.24-6.25) reveal the original place-
ment of some important family rooms, including the
chapel (see fig. 12.1) and the study (“scrittoio”). Note the
symmetrical placement of the two rooms flanking the main
entrance on the ground floor. On the piano nobile , the
largest room, the sala, was used as a reception hall or for
dining or dancing. It has a prime corner position looking
south toward the Duomo, and its dimensions were

6.22. MICHELOZZO DI
BARTOLOMMEO (attributed to). Palazzo
Medici (now known as the Palazzo Medici-
Riccardi), Florence, as seen in a print of
1684 from Ferdinando del Migliore’s
Firenze , citta nobilissima illustrata. Begun
1446. Commissioned by Cosimo de’ Medici.
Ground floor pedimented windows by
Michelangelo (c. 1517), commissioned by
Pope Leo X.

A diplomat from Milan wrote in 1459 that
the palace was “embellished on every side
with gold and fine marbles, with carvings
and sculptures in relief, with pictures and
inlays done in perspective, by the most
accomplished and perfect masters.”

THE RENAISSANCE BEGINS: ARCHITECTURE * I 75

6.23. MICHELOZZO DI BARTOLOMMEO (attributed to). Palazzo Medici, Florence. Begun 1446.

grand — about 65M x 34b feet, with ceilings about 21 feet
high (20 x 10.5 meters, 6.5 meters high). One could go
directly from the sala into a bedroom (camera), and then
proceed into the narrow passage that led into the chapel.

An inventory made after the death of Lorenzo the
Magnificent in 1492 shows that the palace housed a treas-

ury of Quattrocento painting, sculpture, and decorative
arts, as well as a collection of ancient coins and gems (see
figs. 9.15, 10.28, 11.5-11.7, 12.1-12.5, 12.24, 13.2-13.4,
13.15). We know from documents that a bedroom on the
ground floor (the camera terrena in fig. 6.24) had inlaid
wooden wainscoting with Paolo Uccello’s battle scenes (see

X 6

THE QUATTROCENTO

6.24. MICHELOZZO DI
BARTOLOMMEO (attributed
to). Plan of the ground floor of the
Palazzo Medici, Llorence. This plan
was made in 1650, after the Medici
had sold the palace to the Riccardi
family. The areas to the right have
been lightened because they are
later additions and not part of the
Quattrocento palazzo. Archivio
di Stato, Llorence, Guardaroba
Medicea, filza 1016.

1 Garden.

2 Courtyard.

3 Camera terrena.

2 5. MICHELOZZO DI
ARTOLOMMEO (attributed
. Plan of the piano nobile of
ne Palazzo Medici, Florence.

yah.

2 Camera.

1 Chapel.

THE RENAISSANCE BEGINS: ARCHITECTURE * 1 7 7

figs. 11.5-11.6) displayed above, and that Piero de’
Medici’s scrittoio on the piano nohile had an enameled
terra-cotta ceiling with Luca della Robbia’s roundels rep-
resenting the Labors of the Months (today at the Victoria
and Albert Museum in London).

On the exterior, stringcourses separate the three stories,
and the progressive diminution in height from the lower to
the upper story is accompanied by correspondingly
smoother surface treatments. The rustication of the ground
story is replaced on the second by trimmed blocks with
deep joints, while the joints between blocks on the third
story are almost invisible. The windows of the upper
stories are mullioned (divided by a colonette), as is charac-
teristic of Florentine Quattrocento palaces. The Corinthian
colonnettes that support the round arches of these
windows are derived from Gothic structures such as the

Palazzo dei Priori (see fig. 2.40). Medici arms and symbols
decorate the lunettes above the windows and a large coat
of arms at the corner identifies the owners. The motifs of
the cornice are imitated from Roman models, their large
scale providing a definitive cap to the blocklike form of
the structure.

Like large medieval palaces, the Medici Palace was built
around a central courtyard (fig. 6.26); the example at the
Medici Palace is distinguished by its square plan and
regular design. The lower story is a continuous arcade, the
second has windows resembling those of the exterior, and
the third was originally an open loggia. The arcade of the
ground story resembles those of Brunelleschi’s buildings,
but here the proportions are heavier, as is appropriate for
columns that functionally and visually support an enclosed
second story.

6.26. AlICHELOZZO DI BARTOLOMMEO (attributed to). Courtyard with sgraffito decoration, Palazzo Medici, Florence. Donatello’s
bronze David (see fig. 10.22) was first documented as being placed in the center of the courtyard.

i 7 s

THE QUATTROCENTO

6.27. MICHELOZZO DI BARTOLOMMEO. Library, Monastery of S. Marco, Florence. 1442^44. Pietra serena
columns and trim. Commissioned by Cosimo de’ Medici.

Although Michelozzo has not been securely identified
as the architect of Cosimo’s palace, we know a number of
his other works, both architectural and sculptural. One
of his most elegant creations is the library of the monastery
of San Marco (fig. 6.27; for the plan, see fig. 9.6), part of
an extensive rebuilding project supervised by Michelozzo
and financed by Cosimo de’ Medici after 1436. The library
is composed of three aisles of equal height, the outer
ones groin-vaulted, the central one roofed by a barrel
vault and supported on an airy arcade of delicate Ionic
columns; such a combination of arcade and vaults has
no known precedent. The effect of perspective recession,
which is enhanced when the library is viewed in photo-
graphs, is so strong that one wonders whether contempo-
rary painted demonstrations of Brunelleschi’s perspective

scheme might have been a part of Michelozzo’s inspiration.
The long, narrow design with windows on both sides
maximizes the natural light (which would have been more
important to the monks who worked in this space
reading, writing, and copying manuscripts) than any of
the architectural refinements we admire in the structure
today. The natural light combined with the slenderness
of the columns creates an effect that reappears in the
architectural settings of paintings by Fra Angelico (see fig.
9.7), who lived and worked there. Donations from Cosimo
de’ Medici enriched the library’s collection of manuscripts.
Since books could be circulated for a period of six
months to applicants approved by the trustees, the library
at San Marco can be recognized as the first public library
since antiquity.

THE RENAISSANCE BEGINS: ARCHITECTURE • T 79

TRANSITIONS IN

TUSCAN

SCULPTURE

I n irs use and transformation of classical elements
and die application of a mathemarical proportion
system to create new effects of harmony and
balance, architecture is the area in which the new
principles of the Renaissance are most clearly
evident. At the same time, sculptors were creating a
remarkable group of works that express the new concepts
of individual dignity and autonomy.

The Competition Panels

Among the most ambitious sculptural projects of the Early
Renaissance was the continuation of the series of doors for
the Florentine Baptistery, one pair of which, showing the
life of John the Baptist, had been made by Andrea Pisano
in the 1330s (see fig. 3.33). Two more sets, intended to
illustrate the Old and New Testaments, were needed to
decorate the other two portals of the building. In 1401, the
Opera of the Baptistery announced a competition for
the second set of doors, to be held under the supervision of
the Arte di Calimala, the refiners of imported woolen cloth
and the oldest of the Florentine guilds. The seven sculptors
who are reported to have competed were all Tuscans,
including the Sienese artist Jacopo della Quercia (c.
1380-1438), Filippo Brunelleschi, and Lorenzo Ghiberti
1 1381P-1455). Ghiberti, the eventual victor, was scarcely
more than twenty years old at the time and was working
as a painter.

The subject selected for competition was the Old Testa-
ment story of how God tested the faith of Abraham by
commanding him to sacrifice Isaac, his only son, who had
been born to Abraham and his wife Sarah in their extreme
old age (Genesis 22:1-12). Abraham, accompanied by two
servants and a donkey, took Isaac into the wilderness, but
just as he held the knife to his son’s throat, God sent an
angel to tell him that the Lord was pleased by his faith and
would be satisfied with the offering of a ram caught in a
nearby thicket. The story was interpreted as foreshadow-
ing the sacrifice of Christ, but the Opera may have had a
more immediate reason for selecting it. The climax of the
story emphasizes divine intervention, and we must remem-
ber that the Florentines were facing a series of threats from
outside forces (see pp. 159-60).

The two preserved competition panels (figs. 7. 2-7. 3), by
Brunelleschi and Ghiberti, represent the same moment in
the story: the angel intervenes as Isaac kneels on the altar,
his father about to put a knife to his throat. The two
servants, the ram caught in the thicket, and the donkey
drinking from a stream are represented in both panels.
Perhaps the inclusion of these elements was required by
the competition.

Brunelleschi’s relief is an original creation, full of action-
filled poses. Abraham twists Isaac’s head to expose his
neck, while the angel has to rush in and physically restrain
Abraham to prevent the sacrifice. This interpretation is
profoundly human. Abraham’s brutal treatment of Isaac

Opposite : 7.1. Orsanmichele, Florence, photograph of the southeast corner with guild patron saints and tabernacles, including replicas of Nanni
di Banco’s Four Crowned Martyrs (third niche from left, fig. 7.15), Donatello’s St. George (fourth from left, figs. 7.13-7.14). Rebuilt 1337;
arches closed, later fourteenth century; niches and sculptures, fourteenth to sixteenth centuries. Pietra forte . The sculptures from Orsanmichele
are in the process of being removed for restoration; some restored examples have been placed in the upper story of Orsanmichele but this space is
seldom open to visitors. (For a view of the shrine in the interior, see figs. 5. 4-5 .6.)

TRANSITIONS IN TUSCAN SCULPTURE • I 8 I

7.2. FILIPPO BRUNELLESCHI. Sacrifice of Isaac. 1402-3.
Bronze with gilding, 21 x I7V2" (53 x 44 cm) inside molding. Museo
Nazionale del Bargello, Florence. Competition panel for the second
set of bronze doors for the Florentine Baptistery, sponsored by the
Opera of the Baptistery and the Arte di Calimala.

suggests that he has had to suppress the knowledge that he
is about to sacrifice his only child. The body of the boy is
scrawny, the poses of the two main figures tense, and the
drapery rhythms sharp and broken. All are rendered in a
new, profoundly naturalistic style. Interestingly, the
harmony and balance that we studied in Brunelleschi’s
architecture are absent from this dramatic interpretation.

The young Ghiberti, who was trained as a painter but
had not yet matriculated in any guild, displays extraordi-
nary accomplishment in handling bronze. In his interpre-
tation the boy looks upward for deliverance from death.
Abraham, his arm embracing the boy, is poised with his
knife pointed toward but not touching his son. The fore-
shortened angel stops the sacrifice with a gesture. The ram
rests quietly before his thicket, while the servants converse
gently. There is none of the physical contact and psycho-
logical strain of Brunelleschi’s relief, and his jagged move-
ments are replaced in Ghiberti’s work by poses as graceful
as those of dancers. Throughout Ghiberti’s composition —
in every figure and drapery fold and even in the rocks —
curving rhythms create an effect of continuous melody.

Ghiberti’s flowing lines draw our attention to the body
of Isaac. While Brunelleschi has analyzed the human body
with unprecedented naturalism, his end result is ungainly,

7.3. LORENZO GHIBERTI. Sacrifice of Isaac. 1402-3. Bronze
with gilding, 21 x I7V2" (53 x 44 cm) inside molding. Museo
Nazionale del Bargello, Florence. Competition panel for the second
set of bronze doors for the Florentine Baptistery, sponsored by the
Opera of the Baptistery and the Arte di Calimala.

albeit expressive. Ghiberti’s figure of Isaac is the first truly
ideal Renaissance nude; here naturalism and classicism are
blended and sublimated by a new vision of what a human
being can be. The body displays the strength and resilience
of a perfectly proportioned youth, overflowing with energy
yet remarkably graceful. Not since the last Roman sculp-
tor capable of imitating a Greek or Hellenistic original
had such a nude been created. Without special study of
anatomy, as far as we know, Ghiberti understood how to
represent the difference between bone and muscular tissue,
as well as the dynamic possibilities of muscles and the soft-
ness of skin. Most natural of all, perhaps, is the expression
of the boy — not only his upturned face but the spring and
lightness of his pose.

Ghiberti’s Isaac was certainly inspired by a study of
ancient Roman nude figures, and other references to clas-
sical antiquity are evident in the reliefs. In both, the head
of Abraham shows the inspiration of ancient Roman heads
of Jupiter. The servant plucking a thorn from his foot in
Brunelleschi’s panel is based on a popular Roman sculp-
ture, the Spinario , of which many ancient versions survive.
The second servant is also taken from an ancient model.
The relief on the front of Brunelleschi’s altar seems to rep-
resent a scene of religious offering; whatever model may

182

THE QUATTROCENTO

have inspired Brunelleschi, the simple, even deliberately
crude style suggests that he was consciously setting the
event in the distant past. In Ghiberti’s panel the altar is
decorated with an ancient Roman rinceau pattern, and
antique models have been found for both his servants and
the ram. These two reliefs are so replete with classical quo-
tations — yet so few surface in Ghiberti’s subsequent first
set of Baptistery doors — that one wonders if allusions to
ancient art were another requirement for the competition.

There are significant technical differences between the
reliefs. Brunelleschi’s is composed of a bronze sheet to
which the individually cast figures are attached, while
Ghiberti’s background and figures are cast in a single, con-
tinuous piece, with the exception of the figure of Isaac,
which was attached. Ghiberti’s relief is, therefore, stronger
and, because his figures are hollow, his relief is only about
two-thirds as heavy as Brunelleschi’s. The judges of the
competition would surely have realized that doors made
following Ghiberti’s technique would be both more
durable and require less bronze. For the practically minded
members of the Arte di Calimala, such differences may have
helped make Ghiberti the obvious winner in the competition.

Ghiberti was the author of a lengthy but unfinished text
titled — after a popular work by the ancient author
Cicero — the Commentaries , written c. 1447-55. Much of
the text deals with the relative merits of artists of classical
antiquity whose works were known to Ghiberti from liter-
ary sources. One section discusses scientific subjects and is
especially devoted to an analysis of the eye, its structure
and its functions, and the relation of sight to the behavior
of light. Given this study, it seems appropriate to note how
Ghiberti treats the eye in his sculpture. Before his time the
eye was generally modeled as a blank surface, whether or
not the cornea was painted on later (as in the case of
marble statues) or sculpted away so that colored inlay of
nory or glass paste could be inserted. Ghiberti makes
Isaac’s gaze infinitely more expressive by delicately incising
:he line of the cornea and dot of the pupil. In almost all of
Ghiberti’s sculpture, the eye is delineated in this new way,
conferring a vivid individuality to human expression. This
Treatment underscores other new optical qualities evident
in Ghiberti’s sculpture. Near the beginning of the second
Commentary he says, “Nessuna cosa si vede senza la luce”
(‘'Nothing can be seen without light”), and in his relief
gilded surfaces send light flowing across delicate textures
or reflect it into shadows.

Ghiberti to 1425

The Opera acquired the competition relief in 1403 and
paid Ghiberti a sizable sum for gilding the figures and
landscape. He and the members of his workshop worked

on the set of doors (today known as the North Doors) until
1424. Such a lengthy commitment was required by the
scale of the project and the range of complex techniques
involved: modeling in wax, casting in bronze, and then
chasing, gilding, and burnishing the cast bronze, all under
Ghiberti’s meticulous direction.

Between competition and commission, the subject for
the doors was changed, and Ghiberti was confronted with
illustrating the New Testament instead of the Old. His
panel of Abraham was thus set aside, intended for use in
the third set of doors. The second doors (fig. 7.4) were
designed to match the Trecento doors of Andrea Pisano,
which were organized in twenty-eight quatrefoils arranged
in seven rows of four (see figs. 3.33-3.34). While Andrea’s
quatrefoils are framed with a relatively austere design of
alternating diamonds and stylized flowers, the greater
richness and naturalism of Ghiberti’s borders reflects the
taste of the current International Gothic. Through Ghib-
erti’s margins flows a tide of vegetable and animal life —
branches, foliage, fruit, birds, lizards, and even
insects — and there is a head in a quatrefoil at each inter-
section. With the exception of Ghiberti’s self-portrait, these
heads apparently represent Old Testament prophets and
prophetesses. Each is distinctive — young, old, male,
female, calm, agitated — and several reveal Ghiberti’s study
of antique sculpture.

The lowest two rows of reliefs represent the four Evan-
gelists and four Early Christian theologians known as
Fathers of the Church. Above these begin the New Testa-
ment scenes. The first is the Annunciation (fig. 7.5). Ghib-
erti’s version is related to a number of Late Gothic
Annunciations in Florentine art, particularly those by
Lorenzo Monaco. In these, Gabriel flies into the scene — a
visionary angel with clouds streaming from his feet, his
wings beating, still airborne, at the command of God the
Father, who sends down the dove of the Holy Spirit. The
flying angel is common in Florentine art because Gabriel is
shown flying in the most important representation of this
theme in the city: a modest Trecento fresco at SS. Annun-
ziata that is considered to be miracle-working. Because the
head of Gabriel in this fresco was believed to have been
painted by an angel, this type of representation became the
standard in Florence.

The grace and elegance of line of Ghiberti’s composition
is emphasized by the economy of detail. Throughout the
doors, Ghiberti seems to be both attracted to the rhythms
of the quatrefoil format and frustrated by its emphasis on
surface patterning. He keeps Pisano’s flat bronze back-
ground, while at the same time rotating the portico before
which the Virgin stands to indicate depth, as if to penetrate
the flatness of the plaque. The foreshortened figure of God
seems to emerge through the background rather than being

TRANSITIONS IN TUSCAN SCULPTURE

183

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7.4. LORENZO GHIBERTI. North Doors. 1403-24. Bronze with gilding, height approx. 15' (4.6 m). m Baptistery, Florence.
Commissioned by the Opera of the Baptistery and the Arte di Calimala. The outer frame, by Ghiberti, has been dated c. 1423-24.

184

THE QUATTROCENTO

7.5. LORENZO GHIBERTI. Annunciation. Before 1407. Bronze
with gilding, 2 OV 2 x 17 3 /4" (52 x 45 cm) inside molding, m! Panel on
the North Doors, Baptistery, Florence (fig. 7.4).

7.6. LORENZO GHIBERTI. Flagellation . c. 1416-19. Bronze
with gilding, 20 V 2 x 17 3 /4" (52 x 45 cm) inside molding, it Panel on
the North Doors, Baptistery, Florence (fig. 7.4).

placed against it as Andrea's figures were. Here Ghiberti
struggles against the limitations of the frame, trying to
suggest the illusion of a deeper space. The drapery forms
contribute to this illusion; Gabriel's cloak envelops his
^ody in drapery that enhances his mass, and Mary’s belt-
Less tunic falls in flowing patterns about her limbs, reveal-
ing their fullness and grace.

A partly classical portico sets the stage for the Flagella-
4$on (fig. 7.6). The order in which these reliefs were made
remains unclear but presumably this is among the later
ones, for it seems to have been designed near the time that
Brunelleschi was meditating on his new classical architec-
ture for the Ospedale degli Innocenti and San Lorenzo (see
tigs. 6.13, 6.17). Or perhaps the relief precedes these build-
ings: a search of the backgrounds in Florentine art of the
early 1400s discloses symptoms of the oncoming Renais-
sance. In this relief, for example, Ghiberti’s Roman com-
posite capitals demonstrate his interest in ancient Roman
decorative motifs. The colonnade, however, is only a back-
ground for the interaction of the figures rather than an
enclosure. Christ’s supple body continues the new classical
Tradition Ghiberti had established in his Isaac. With twist-
ing movements the men whipping Christ raise their now-
missing weapons and carry the viewer’s eye up into the
rhythmic pattern of the quatrefoil. In a sketch (fig. 7.7),

7.7. LORENZO GHIBERTI. Flagellation, c. 1416-19(?).
Pen and bister, 8 Vs x 6V2" (21x17 cm). Albertina, Vienna.

TRANSITIONS IN TUSCAN SCULPTURE * L 85

7.8. LORENZO GHIBERTI. St.John the Baptist and inlaid marble tabernacle. 1405-17. Bronze, originally with gilded decoration, and mosaic
decoration in the Gothic gable; height of figure 8'4" (2.55 m). Orsanmichele, Florence. Commissioned by the Arte di Calimala (see also fig. 7.10).
Historic photograph taken before the figure was removed from its niche.

Ghiberti explored possibilities for the figures whipping
Christ. That this quick compositional study should have
survived from a period when drawings were not valued is
amazing; it allows us a view of Ghiberti that we would not
otherwise have. Working from models who were probably
apprentices in his workshop, he caught their motions
quickly, using overlapping strokes of the pen. He aban-
doned the pose at the bottom, but reworked the top one
into the graceful figure in the relief.

While Ghiberti was working on the project, the same
guild who commissioned the bronze doors asked him to
make a bronze statue of St. John the Baptist (fig. 7.8) for
their niche at Orsanmichele (see fig. 7.1). This structure,
originally a loggia, was rebuilt by the commune in 1337 as
a combined shrine, wheat market, and granary. Its enor-
mous size may have been intended to convince citizens of
the vast amounts of grain the commune kept available in
case of siege or famine. (For its location at a central posi-

i 8 6

THE QUATTROCENTO

"Ml. DONATELLO. David . Probably the figure documented
in 1408-9 and reworked in 1416. Marble, height 6'3" (1.91 m)

I including base). Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence.

This is probably the work commissioned by the Opera del Duomo
for one of the buttresses of the Duomo. Donatello’s figure and a
companion one by Nanni di Banco were not mounted there because
the commissioners had misjudged the scale; the figures were too small
for the architecture.

stands proudly yet awkwardly, with his left hand bent
upward on his hip and his head tilted. His elevated chin
and self-confident pose assert his awareness of his triumph.
Interestingly, a large patch of marble makes up David’s left
elbow. Since the elbow extends further into space than the
rest of the figure, this raises the intriguing possibility that
the youthful Donatello may have added the patch to create
a larger figure than his assigned block of marble would
allow. It is also possible, of course, that he misjudged
the size of his block and had to add the patch to complete
the figure, or that the patch was added when the elbow
was damaged.

Donatello seems to have been fascinated by textures;
David’s hair falls in unkempt masses that contrast with his
smooth cloak and even smoother neck and cheeks. Even at
this early stage in Donatello’s style, however, curious sculp-
tural effects appear; projections and hollows in the marble
no longer correspond to those in the represented object.
Donatello has begun to reduce contrasts in levels and to
vary the marble surface to attract light and cast shadows.
These tendencies toward optical suggestion — rather than
description — increased in Donatello’s work over time.

Donatello’s earliest contribution to the niches of Orsan-
michele seems to have been the marble figure of St . Mark
(fig. 7.12) for the Arte dei Linaioli e Rigattieri, the linen
weavers and peddlers. Shortly after the statue was com-
missioned, the guild approved a drawing submitted by two
stone carvers for the elaborate inlaid marble tabernacle in
which the figure was to stand. Donatello, then, neither
designed nor executed the niche in which his figure would
be displayed. While the contract for the tabernacle set the
price at 200 florins, Donatello’s contract stated that the
figure would be appraised only on completion of the work,
revealing that, whereas an ornamental niche could be eval-
uated in advance, the value of a sculpted figure could be
determined only after it was completed. Since Donatello
was usually paid between 90 and 100 florins for a figure
like St. Mark , the tabernacle would have cost approxi-
mately twice as much as the figure.

A comparison between this statue and Ghiberti’s John
the Baptist (see fig. 7.8) is instructive. In Donatello’s Mark ,
Gothic patterns have completely disappeared. The figure’s
feet seem to sink into his cushion (a product sold by the
members of the guild), heightening the effect of reality,
while the drapery moves naturally over torso and limbs.
Donatello seems to have been demonstrating how cloth —
the product of the patron guild — behaves. One wonders
why the Florentines, whose fortunes were largely founded
on the manufacture, processing, and sale of cloth, had not
paid more attention to its properties before instead of
being seduced by the abstract formulas of the Byzantine,
Giottesque, or Gothic styles.

TRANSITIONS IN TUSCAN SCULPTURE * I 89

St. Mark’s mantle, like David’s, is tied about the shoul-
ders, and folds of cloth fall around the hips without con-
cealing their structure. The figure is represented standing
in a pose derived from antiquity that is known as contrap-
posto: the left knee comes forward against the cloth to
demonstrate that it is relaxed, while straight folds reinforce
the role of the weight-bearing leg. This treatment of the
drapery bears a striking resemblance to that of the caryatids
from the ancient Greek Erechtheum in Athens, a monument
Donatello might possibly have known from a drawing or
heard of from a traveler who had visited the Acropolis. It
is more likely that he was inspired by one of the copies of
or variations on these figures that survived from Roman
times in Italy. Donatello’s figure suggests the potential for
movement more strongly than the Greek caryatids because
of the way the axes of the body twist in space.

It has been claimed that this statue represents such an
abrupt break with tradition that it could be described as a
mutation — a fundamental declaration of the new Renais-
sance position with respect to the visible world. Yet it has
not been emphasized how much this new position is stated
with simple, practical means. No drawings or models
survive to help us reconstruct Donatello’s creative process;
perhaps he used a method described by Giorgio Vasari
more than a century later, who said that a sculptor should
first model a clay figure in the nude. The next step was to
dip sheets of cloth in what potters today call “slip” (a very
thin paste of water and clay), hang these masses of cloth on
the clay figure until the drapery fell in a naturalistic
manner, and let them harden. The sculptor could then
make a full-scale statue in marble or bronze on the basis of
this draped model. There is no way of knowing whether
Donatello used this process in designing the St. Mark , but
one of his later works, Judith and Holof ernes (see fig.
12.7), demonstrates that he used it at least once on a large
scale; over Judith’s forehead we can see where the slip
broke away during casting and the cloth itself was cast into
the bronze. Perhaps the convincing naturalism of the cloth
in the St. Mark is, in part, the result of Donatello’s use of
just such a model.

According to Vasari, guild officials objected to the figure
of St. Mark when they saw it in the studio and refused to
allow it to be installed in their tabernacle. Vasari does not

7.12. DONATELLO. St. Mark. 1411-16. Marble figure, originally
with gilded decoration and metal additions; height 7T0" (2.39 m).
Orsanmichele, Florence. Commissioned by the Arte dei Linaioli e
Rigattieri. Niche by Perfetto di Giovanni and Albizzi di Pietro. The
figure’s nose has been damaged and restored. Historic photograph
taken before the figure was removed from its niche.

19 0

THE QUATTROCENTO

detail their complaint, but the long torso and short legs of
the figure may have made it seem malproportioned. The
sculptor asked them to allow him to work on it in its final
position and, after it was placed in its niche at Orsan-
michele, he pretended to continue carving behind a screen.
Without having made any changes, he then unveiled the
figure and called in the officials, who enthusiastically
approved the same work they had previously rejected. Pre-
sumably, Donatello had from the beginning calculated that
he needed to lengthen the torso and shorten the legs in
order to make the figure seem naturalistic when seen by a
viewer standing in the street below.

Donatello’s statue is formidable not only in the convic-
tion and naturalism of its rendering, but also in the con-
centrated power of the face. St. Mark seems, on the one
hand, to assess the outer world and its dangers and, on the
other, to summon up the inner resources of the self. This
noble face with its expression of severe determination can
be understood as a symbolic portrait of the ideal Floren-
tine under stress, as identified at the time by humanist pro-
pagandists for the republic. The expression conveys the
virtues demanded in a crisis: the eyes flare, the brow knits,
the head lifts, and the figure draws back in pride, express-
ing moral grandeur. By contrast, the styles of Florence’s
opponents, Milan and Naples, remained flamboyantly
Gothic at this time, and the sculpted figures created in
those cities maintained a courtly, arrogant expression.

In the details of the St. Mark , the optical suggestion first
noted in the David become more evident. Donatello did
not model the curls of Mark’s hair and beard in the round
as the Pisano family or Ghiberti would have done; grooves
and scratches suggest reality as it is revealed in light and
shade. Donatello’s interest in optical effects led him to
abandon Ghiberti’s incised cornea edge and drilled pupil,
which set out to preserve the external shape of the eyeball;
m St. Mark the pupil is dilated, becoming a deep hole, so
that the resulting shadows suggest the transparency of the
cornea. The eye Donatello creates through suggestion is
thus more realistic in effect than Ghiberti’s replication of
the eyeball in marble.

Donatello’s new approach to figural sculpture is taken a
step further in his St. George (fig. 7.13), also for Orsan-
michele. The marble figure, removed from its niche at the
end of the nineteenth century and placed in a museum for
protection, was replaced by a cast in bronze. St. George
was the patron saint of the guild of armorers and sword
makers, whose importance must have jumped sharply in
the days when Florence was threatened by Ladislaus. But
we can no longer see the figure of St. George as Donatello
originally conceived it: a socket hole in his right hand, still
bearing traces of corroded metal, and drill holes at various
points indicate that the figure once sported the products

7.13. DONATELLO. St. George, c. 1420. Marble, height 6'5" (1.95
m). Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence. Commissioned by the
Arte dei Corazzai e Spadai for their niche on Orsanmichele, Florence.
See also fig. 7.1.

Writing about this figure in the sixteenth century, Francesco Bocchi
said: “The legs move, the arms are ready, the head alert, and the whole
figure acts; by virtue of the character, the manner and form of the action
presents to our eyes a valiant, invincible, and magnanimous soul.”

TRANSITIONS IN TUSCAN SCULPTURE * I 9 I

made by guild members — a helmet, a jutting sword or
spear, and a belt and sheath. These have long since disap-
peared. The helmet would probably have covered most of
the curly locks, and the sword or spear would have pro-
truded menacingly into the street.

The face comes as a surprise. It is the countenance not
of an ideal hero but of an individual who is experiencing
fear. The history of human crises is studded with individu-
als who never did a brave thing until an emergency called
forth a burst of action. Donatello’s St. George shows us a
sensitive, reflective face with delicate features: a slightly
receding chin, dilated eyes looking outward as if dreading
the approaching combat, and a brow furrowed with
nervous tension. His stance — balanced on both feet —
expresses preparedness. His entire being seems to be mar-
shaling his resources in the proximity of danger. “In times
of safety anyone can behave well,” said Niccolo da
Uzzano, one of the humanist leaders of the Florentine
Republic, “it is in adversity that real courage is shown.”
This passage and others written by the humanists describe
the qualities seen in the St. George and other monumental
statues of the new age. With the saint’s combination of
alert stance and worried expression, Donatello introduced
the element of narrative into large figural sculpture and
related that narrative to contemporary events. It is even
possible that the cross on George’s shield is not only the
emblem of the Christian saint but also a reference to the
red cross on a white ground that is the emblem of the
popolo — the people — of Florence (this emblem, among
others, is visible along the top of the Palazzo dei Priori; see
fig. 2.40). While Donatello’s earlier St. Mark demonstrated
a new sense of character, his St. George becomes part of a
larger narrative that reaches its climax in the sculpted
predella below.

This marble relief (fig. 7.14), which represents the story
of the young hero’s victory over the dragon, demonstrates
a startling innovation in relief sculpture. Earlier sculptors
creating reliefs in stone or bronze had thought of the back-
ground as a plane in front of which figures were placed or
from which they seemed to emerge, as in the competition
reliefs discussed at the beginning of this chapter. Even
Ghiberti, although apparently wanting to penetrate the
inert background, did so only by means of spatial implica-
tion. In stone relief sculpture, for example, figures were
carved almost in the round, barely adhering to the back-
ground slab, or in a kind of half-round (see figs. 5. 5-5. 6).
A cross-section of the typical ancient or medieval marble
relief would show the background slab as a straight line
with raised projections corresponding to cross-sections of
the figures. But a cross-section of Donatello’s St. George
and the Dragon would be illegible — a series of bumps and
hollows. These projections and depressions are subtly
manipulated to attract light and cast shadow. Donatello’s
models for this technique were drawn from antiquity and
may even have been such small-scale works as coins or
cameos; the profile figure of the princess, with her wind-
blown, clinging drapery, is clearly derived from just such
an ancient source.

Certain aspects of Donatello’s relief sculpture no longer
correspond to the idea of the object, but to the image of
that object which light casts upon the retina. This is a
crucial distinction that can be understood as marking an
end to medieval art. The eye is now supreme. Donatello’s
new technique of optical suggestion is so subtle that he is
able to dissolve the barrier between represented object and
background. In the background, he transforms the marble
into air, showing us distant hills, trees, and convincingly
naturalistic clouds, their forms progressively blurred by an

7.14. DONATELLO. St George and the Dragon, c. 1420. Marble, 15 3 /s x 47V4 1 ’ (39 x 120 cm). Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence.
Relief from the St. George tabernacle, Orsanmichele, Florence. See also fig. 7.13.

19 2

THE QUATTROCENTO

intervening veil of atmosphere. It can be argued that the
arcade to the right is possibly the earliest demonstration of
Brunelleschi’s perspective scheme not by the architect; the
loggia is not essential to the story, and notice the emphasis
on spatial experimentation in the opening into a second
space beyond the loggia in the lines of the pavement
beyond the door, and the open window under the loggia.
Behind the loggia, progressive diminution makes the line of
trees seem to recede into space. While the horse rears as
George’s lance plunges into the dragon’s breast and the
princess clasps her hands, the arcade and rocky ground
carry the eye back into misty distance and the intervening
air seems stirred by a natural breeze.

All this is done in a sketchy, remarkably unsculptural
manner, with Donatello employing the chisel as if it were a
drawing instrument. The Italian expression for Donatello’s
innovation is rilievo schiacciato (flattened relief). This term
is useful but inaccurate, for the forms are not created by
flattening. Here Donatello has abandoned the traditional
notion of relief in favor of optical suggestion. As revolu-
tionary as the George relief is, it is not executed completely
:n rilievo schiacciato ; the figures of George, the horse, and
the princess are in a kind of half-relief. Only later did
Donatello execute reliefs in which every form is treated in
the sketchy, optical style seen in the background here. Nev-
ertheless, the St. George relief is the earliest demonstration
>f Donatello’s new technique for relief sculpture, as well as
®e first demonstration by another artist of Brunelleschi’s
system of linear perspective.

Clearly, Donatello’s effects were calculated for the posi-
tion of the relief on the north side of the building, where it
was exposed to a soft, diffused light reflected from the
buildings across the street. The relief depends on the
autonomy of a single pair of eyes at a defined point in
^pace, as indicated by the use of Brunelleschi’s perspective
scheme in the loggia. Recession is also suggested in the
cragon’s cave on the left. Implicit in this approach is a
concept of the individual that is alien to the medieval
notion of corporate society. Is it coincidental that this new
:dea first appears in a relief of the victory of St. George,
which can be seen as symbolically re-enacting the triumph
of Florence against Ladislaus? There were imperfections in
Horentine democracy, but the declarations of her human-
ists, and, conversely, the denunciations of liberty by those
who supported the dictators in other centers, leave no
doubt that, to contemporaries, the freedom of the individ-
ual was at stake. This concept of freedom is often posed as
me of the wellsprings of the new style.

In northern Europe, a similar interest in naturalism was
aeveloping in the art of Netherlandish miniaturists and
panel painters. Their enthusiasm for the visible world and

ery object it contained resulted in a technique of breath-

taking accuracy in representation. But the illustrations of
the Turin-Milan Hours , the earliest works by Jan van Eyck
that show a stage comparable to the new point of view
revealed in Donatello’s relief, are datable probably to the
1420s. Paradoxically, then, Donatello’s work could be
called the most advanced pictorial composition of its time.
Lorenzo Monaco and his Late Gothic contemporaries give
no hint that they knew what Donatello was about.

Nanni di Banco

Nanni di Banco (c. 1374-1421), a contemporary of Ghib-
erti and Donatello, was brought up by a sculptor father
who worked in the cathedral workshop. Nanni was
responsible for statues in three niches at Orsanmichele, the
most striking of which is the Four Crowned Martyrs (fig.
7.15). According to legend, these Early Christian martyrs
were Roman sculptors who were executed for refusing to
carve a statue of a pagan god for the emperor Diocletian.
The niche retains some Gothic details, but the togalike
cloaks of the two figures on the right could hardly look
more Roman, and their dignified poses are inspired by
ancient Roman statuary. The heads are strikingly reminis-
cent of Roman portraiture, and it has been suggested that
one is a portrait of Nanni’s sculptor brother Antonio, who
died while the group was being created. The two figures on
the right were carved from a single block of marble. This
may in part have been practical, given the difficulties of
squeezing four figures into a single niche, but it could also
reflect the influence of a passage from the ancient Roman
writer Pliny the Elder, who in his Natural History (c. 77
ce) praised ancient sculptors who had carved two figures
from a single block.

Nanni’s reliance on and quotation of Roman sources
were not unique at the time. The propagandists who wrote
in support of the Milanese and Neapolitan autocrats had
drawn on literary examples from Imperial Rome; the apol-
ogists for the Florentine Republic pointed to the virtues of
republican Rome and the Roman people, whose heirs they
felt themselves to be. Even the Tuscan version of the Italian
language, known as the volgare from the Latin word for
“common,” was defended by the humanists as the true
successor to ancient Latin. It is republican models that
these statues call to mind. The determinedly Roman nature
of Nanni’s Four Crowned Martyrs may also be the sculp-
tor’s attempt to be historically accurate — to represent these
sculptors as a part of the ancient Roman world in which
they lived, worked, and died. Such an attitude would coin-
cide with the new interest in accurate, researched history
evident in the work of contemporary humanists.

There is something conspiratorial about these four men,
united in a resolve to die for their principles. The patrons

TRANSITIONS IN TUSCAN SCULPTURE * 193

7.15. NANNI DI
BANCO. Four Crowned
Martyrs ( Quattro Santi
Coronati ) and tabernacle,
c. 1409-16/17. White
marble figures and
polychrome niche of
white, green, and gray
marble with additions in
blue faience; height of
figures approx. 6' (1.83
m). Commissioned by the
Arte di Pietra e Legname.
The two figures on the
right were carved from
a single block. Historic
photograph taken before
the figures were removed
from their niche.
Orsanmichele, Florence.
See also fig. 7.1.

were the guild of workers in stone and wood, to which
Nanni was inscribed as a member in 1405. By depicting
the guild’s patrons in this manner, Nanni ennobled its
members, as Donatello was shortly to do for the armorers
in the St. George. The four dignified individuals grouped
in a semicircle formed an unprecedented composition in
Italian sculpture, one that exercised a profound effect on
the art of the Quattrocento and even the Cinquecento,
especially on the painter Masaccio (see fig. 8.9). Its impact
is even demonstrated in Raphael’s frescoes in the Stanza
della Segnatura (see figs. 17.45-17.49). The Martyr to

the right, derived from a figure of an ancient Roman
orator, seems to speak while the others listen, contemplat-
ing their decision and assessing the consequences of their
resolution. The debate that we sense is taking place here
has been interpreted as a demonstration of the corporate
republican ideals of the members of the merchant-class and
artisan-class guilds in Florence. Nanni and his father,
uncle, and brother were all engaged in various guild and
civic responsibilities.

The movements of the drapery folds seem in some cases
to sweep the four together, in others to hold them hesi-

194

THE QUATTROCENTO

tantly apart. But the figures are united by two simple
devices: first, the pedestal on which they stand is carved in
an arc that follows the placement of their feet; second, the
back of the tabernacle is draped in broad folds — a motif
taken from ancient sarcophagi that reinforces the semi-
circular grouping. Details of features, hair, and beards
either long or stubbled (the decision not to shave marked,
in certain periods of Roman history, the resolve of the pen-
itent) demonstrate an interest in both ancient and Gothic
sources, natural enough in a sculptor trained in a fairly
conservative tradition. Nanni is apparently not inspired by
the optical suggestions of Donatello; his drapery masses,
locks of hair and beard, stubble, wrinkles, and veins are
fully modeled, not flattened or sketched as in Donatello’s
illusionistic method.

To enhance the naturalism of the group, the feet of the
two outer figures overlap the base, extending into our
space. The pedestal below the white marble figures is a dis-
tinctive gray-veined marble, emphasizing that the figures
are separate from their base. Like the malleable pillow
below the feet of Donatello’s St. Mark , which heightens the
sense of reality, Nanni’s base suggests that these figures
could step out of their tabernacle. In the relief below,
carved in a traditional style, four stoneworkers in contem-
porary dress build a wall, carve a column, measure a
capital, and finish a statue of a nude putto.

It is idle to speculate what Nanni di Banco might have
achieved had he not died young, but the single-minded
force of his art makes us wonder whether the course of the
Quattrocento might not have been different had he lived to
mid-century or even beyond, as did Donatello and Ghiberti.
The culminating work of Nanni’s brief career is his
Assumption of the Virgin (fig. 7.16) above the Porta della
Mandorla — a doorway of Florence Cathedral that takes its
name from the mandorla (almond-shaped glory) surrounding
the Virgin. The work, commissioned in 1414, was listed as
incomplete in a document at Nanni’s death in 1421, but
this may refer only to the fact that the ensemble, carved in
the workshop, had yet to be mounted on the cathedral.

In contrast to the gravity of Nanni’s work at Orsan-
michele, his Assumption is turbulent. Four angels lift the
mandorla, while the Virgin, supported by seraphim, hands
her belt to the kneeling St. Thomas as proof of her assump-
tion. Today the relief has lost its most important attribute,
tor, as in Andrea Orcagna’s relief of the same subject at
Orsanmichele (see fig. 5.6), the original belt was a length
of gold-edged silk that would have moved with the wind.
This was soon replaced with a metal version, which is also
lost. The figures had gold leaf on selected details, and a
painted blue background clarified the crowded composi-
tion. Because of the limited space available and the need
tor a clear narrative when seen from below, the usual

7.16. NANNI DI BANCO. Assumption of the Virgin , gable on
the ft Porta della Mandorla, Cathedral, Florence. 1414-22. White
marble with frame of red and green-black marble and green granite,
originally with a painted blue background and gold leaf decoration
on details of the figures, a painted metal lily in one of the hands of
the Virgin Mary, and a silk sash with gold borders or tassels. The
latter was replaced with a copper sash in 1435. The spikes that held
the sash in place can still be seen in Mary's hands. Commissioned by
the Opera del Duomo.

The main relief is composed of eleven sections of white marble.
Notice the motif of repeated elaborate hanging lamps shown in
perspective in inlaid marble in the elaborate border; lamps are a
traditional symbol of the Virgin Mary, but the specific nature of these
examples may reflect the use of hanging lamps in Florentine ritual in
honor of the Virgin.

TRANSITIONS IN TUSCAN SCULPTURE * 195

witnesses are absent and the scene acquires the character of
a private revelation to St. Thomas, the most famous of
doubters. The only other figure in the ensemble, except for
the angels (three more, making music, fill the point of the
gable), is a bear who seems to be trying to shake acorns
from an oak tree. The meaning of this unusual addition to
the Assumption scene has been difficult to unravel, but one
analysis emphasizes that the bear can be connected both to
the notion of the wilderness into which the original sinners,
Adam and Eve, were exiled, and to the sin of physical grat-
ification or lust. In this light, Frederick Hartt’s original
suggestion is not far off the mark: “Perhaps Nanni intended
to contrast the impossibility of gaining bounty through
force, exemplified by the animal’s greed and rage, with the
golden gift received by St. Thomas through divine grace.” It
has recently been suggested that this bear may have played
a role in inspiring the humanist Leonbattista Alberti when he
wrote that the “copiousness and variety” of a good istoria
(narrative scene) would be well served by adding animals.

The effect of the narrative whole is dramatic and instan-
taneous. Flying folds of drapery, agitated by the upward
movement of Mary’s mandorla, envelop Nanni’s power-
fully modeled figures. The faces are full of individuality,
energy, and beauty — all hallmarks of Renaissance style. It
is clear that Nanni was in the forefront of the Florentine
Renaissance, in full control of its naturalism and
classical resources.

Donatello (c. 1420 to c. 1435)

Donatello was involved repeatedly in work for the Cathe-
dral of Florence, even contributing two small heads to the
Porta della Mandorla after Nanni’s death. During the
twenty years from 1415 to 1435, the sculptor, sometimes
in partnership with Nanni di Bartolo, carved seven marble
prophets for the Campanile (see fig. 3.25), completing the
series of sixteen begun in the Trecento. These statues have
now been removed to a museum, where they have lost an
essential element of their former effect: the tension between
statue and niche so important in works by Donatello,
Ghiberti, and others. While the statues at Orsanmichele
addressed the citizen from slightly above eye level, the
Campanile figures could be viewed only from a great dis-
tance. Donatello, who was relatively conservative in his
treatment of his earlier statues for this setting, apparently
realized after they were installed that he would have to
adopt more drastic methods if he wanted to communicate
with viewers standing far below.

The most dramatic of the group is the so-called Zuccone
(“Big Squash,” or “Baldy”), a figure sometimes identified
as Habakkuk (fig. 7.17). Donatello clearly calculated the
effect of the statue on an observer standing at least 60 feet

below. The psychological intensity expressed by this figure
surpasses anything he had previously created. In Gothic
cathedrals and throughout Italian Trecento art, Old Testa-
ment prophets and New Testament saints — with the excep-
tion of John the Baptist, who lived in the wilderness — are
generally dignified characters with flowing robes and well-
combed hair. Not so Donatello’s emaciated prophet, who

7.17. DONATELLO. Zuccone {Habakkuk?). c. 1427-36. Marble,
height 6'5 " (1.95 m). Museo delPOpera del Duomo, Llorence.
Commissioned by the Opera del Duomo. Historic photograph
of the figure on the Campanile, Llorence (see fig. 3.25).

196

THE QUATTROCENTO

seems to throb with the import of his divinely inspired
messages and the devastation of his rejection. His stance
and expression convey the fiery intensity of the prophetic
books of the Old Testament. As Zuccone draws his chin in
and gazes bitterly down, he opens his mouth as if to speak
in condemnation of humanity’s iniquities. The figure is
skin and bone under the rough cloth robe, which suggests
the sweep of a toga. The hand clutches convulsively at the
strap and the rolled top of a scroll. The bald head is carved
with brutal strokes, left intentionally rough, and the marks
that represent stubble on the chin, the flare of the lips,
and the eyebrows have been exaggerated by the effects
of weathering. -

One wonders where Donatello found the models for this
work. Denunciatory types still roam the streets of Florence;
perhaps in Donatello’s day there were even more. Certain
features suggest that Donatello was inspired by the realism
found in Roman portrait busts, but, whatever his sources,
they have been transfigured by the sculptor’s imaginative
powers. The pulsating folds, disordered locks, tense pose,

and searing glance all express the difficult task facing the
prophet, who must communicate to an unwilling people
what he believes to be an inspiration received from God.

Donatello’s optical interests and the vitality of his dra-
matic style reach a climax in the Feast of Herod (fig. 7.18)
for the baptismal font of the Cathedral of Siena, a project
in which he was involved with other sculptors, including
Ghiberti and the Sienese Jacopo della Quercia (fig. 7.19).
His relief offers a virtuoso demonstration of the devices a
sculptor can use to create illusionistic space: linear per-
spective, overlapping, diminution, and reduction in height
of relief, leading back to schiacciato in the most distant
part of the illusion.

Donatello’s Feast of Herod is closer to a consistent state-
ment of one-point perspective than any earlier work in
Western art. It is not a painting, of course, but a three-
dimensional relief that was to be placed on the base of the
baptismal font and would, therefore, be seen from above
at a rather sharp angle. To use a perspective scheme that
coordinated with the observer’s high viewpoint would

7.18. DONATELLO. Feast of Herod. 1423-27. Gilded bronze, 23 V 2 " (60 cm) square, ft Panel on the Baptismal Pont, Baptistery, Siena.

TRANSITIONS IN TUSCAN SCULPTURE • 197

7.19. LORENZO GHIBERTI, DONATELLO, JACOPO DELLA QUERCIA, and others.
Baptismal Font. 1416-31. Marble, gilded bronze, and colored enamel. Baptistery, Siena.

have demanded architecture that was sharply distorted.
Instead, Donatello placed his vanishing point, which can
be established by tracing floor lines, moldings, and the
recession of capitals and lintels, in the center of the relief.
But Donatello, always an enemy of regularity, introduced
so many different levels of recession that it is impossible to
trace the perspective scheme he used. He also created, in
the wall directly behind the figures, two curious openings
that recede at angles counter to that of the perspective
scheme. By interrelating the square slabs of the inlaid floor

diagonally, so that the extended diagonal of one becomes
the diagonal of the square in the next row, he imposes on
the basic system of orthogonals, which meet at a vanishing
point within the frame, two secondary systems of diago-
nals that meet at other vanishing points to either side,
outside the frame. This produces an external control for
establishing a systematic diminution of the distance
between the transversals in depth. These secondary
systems are also a part of Alberti’s perspective theory. (For
Alberti’s later formulation of perspective, see pp. 248^19.)

198

THE QUATTROCENTO

Nothing in Donatello’s architectural perspective, with its
views through three successive levels separated by arches
and piers, prepares us for what is happening in the fore-
ground space. There the scheme is disrupted by the main
event: the presentation of St. John’s severed head on a
platter to Herod. The moment Donatello has chosen is the
explosion of an emotional grenade that produces a wave of
shock among the spectators. Herod shrinks back; a guest
expostulates; another recoils, covering his face with his
hand; two children scramble away, then stop short and
look back. At the right Salome continues her dance, but
two attendants stare, one with his arm over the other’s
shoulder. Donatello incorporates us and our position into
his work, for, when the work is viewed from above, it
becomes clear that the figures are grouped in a semicircle,
with the center left open to express the explosive drama of
the event. The perspective network of interlocking grids is
half submerged in the rush of conflicting drapery folds.
Donatello’s dramatic scene was to influence later artists,
including Leonardo da Vinci, whose Last Supper (see fig.
16.23) adopts and refines the dramatic principle on which
this history-making relief was based.

Jacopo della Quercia

The fourth remarkable sculptor of the Early Renaissance
was the Sienese Jacopo della Quercia (c. 1371/4P-1438), son
of a goldsmith and wood engraver. If Vasari’s accounts of
Jacopo’s early life are accurate, he must already have enjoyed
a considerable career as a sculptor before taking part in the
competition for the doors of the Florentine Baptistery in 1401,
but little is preserved that can be attributed with certainty

7.20. JACOPO DELLA QUERCIA. Preparatory drawing for the
Fonte Gaia. 1409. Pen and brown ink, brush and brown wash, on
vellum; 7 % x 8M" (19.9 x 21.4 cm). Metropolitan Museum of Art,
New York. Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1949 (49.191).

The second section of this drawing is preserved in the Victoria and
Albert Museum in London. The fountain itself, located in Piazza del
Campo across from Siena’s city hall, the Palazzo Pubblico, was 33 '4"
wide and 19' 3" deep (10.17x5. 5 7m) and was commissioned by the
commune of Siena. It was completed in 1419. Because of the use
of poor-quality stone, the damaged figures and reliefs have been
removed and are now in the museum at the former hospital of Sta.
Maria della Scala in Siena.

to his early period. The major sculptural cycle from his
middle period is the Fonte Gaia in Siena, a public fountain
in Siena’s main square, the Piazza del Campo (see fig. 1.9).

The fountain’s name, which means “gay” or “happy,”
was taken from an earlier fountain on the same site and
suggests the importance of a reliable water supply in the
city. Jacopo’s elaborate decoration further demonstrates
the importance of this project for Siena. Because the foun-
tain was carved of soft stone and the sculptures were
damaged over time, we illustrate a rare surviving drawing
of the left third of the fountain (fig. 7.20). While Ghiberti’s
drawing for the Flagellation (see fig. 7.7) was made as the
sculptor was planning his composition, the finished detail
we see here suggests that Jacopo’s may have been a pres-
entation drawing, made to be shown to and approved by
the representatives of the commune of Siena who were the
fountain’s patrons. This and a second drawing that shows
the right section of the fountain may have originally been
preserved as legal documents because they recorded what
the artist proposed and the commune approved.

The water poured into a central rectangular basin from
multiple spigots in walls decorated with high-relief sculp-
tures. The central niche, not seen in this drawing, con-
tained the Virgin and Child, the Virgin being the patron
saint of Siena. Four of the eight civic virtues (Wisdom,
Hope, Fortitude, Prudence, Justice, Humility, Temperance,
and Faith) that surrounded her are included in the sketch.
Reliefs at either end (not seen here) represented the Cre-
ation of Adam and the Expulsion from Eden, references to
the “original sin” from which Mary and Christ redeemed
humankind and from which believers are liberated through
baptism, the sacrament of water.

TRANSITIONS IN TUSCAN SCULPTURE * T 99

On high bases on either side of the fountain were two
standing female figures, each with two children. Their
identity is not certain, but one theory holds that they
represent Rea Silvia, the mother of Romulus and Remus
(fig. 7.21), and Acca Larenzia, the wet nurse of the twins.
(Remus was considered to be the father of Senus, founder
of the city of Siena.) More recently the women have been
identified as Divine and Public Charity. Whatever their
iconographic meaning, these maternal figures with babies
must be seen as representations of fertility, especially when
understood in the context of life-giving water at a public
fountain. In these figures Jacopo builds upon his knowl-
edge of the Renaissance movement in Florence, adding a
sensuous treatment of the female body not yet seen in Flo-
rentine art. A sense of organic life is conveyed not just by
the subtle contrapposto and the lively movement of the
babies, but also by the swelling contours of the group as
a whole. With a surprisingly meditative expression,
the figure of Rea SilviaiPublic Charity looks sharply down-
ward, making eye contact with the Sienese citizens
who would come to the fountain daily to get water. A
comparison with the figure in the drawing shows how
dramatically Quercia changed his composition as the
work developed.

In many respects, the art of Jacopo della Quercia is a
curious phenomenon. He had little interest in the new clas-
sicizing architectural motifs of the Florentine Renaissance,
paying no attention to its spatial harmonies, and his rare
landscape elements remained Giottesque to the end of his
days. Yet in his reliefs for the portal of San Petronio at
Bologna (fig. 7.22), he projected a world of action in
which figures of superhuman strength struggle and collide.
In the Creation of Adam (fig. 7.23), for example, a solemn,
long-bearded Creator with a triangular halo gathers about
him a mantle with sweeping folds that suggest the power
of Donatello’s and Nanni’s drapery yet none of their
feeling for real cloth. With his right hand the Creator
confers on Adam a living souk The figure of Adam, whose
name in Hebrew means “earth,” is understood as part of
the ground from which he is about to rise. Unlike Ghib-
erti’s delicately constructed nudes (see fig. 10.13), this
husky figure is broadly built and smoothly modeled.
Jacopo may have patterned the pose and treatment of the
figure after the classical Adam in a Byzantine ivory relief
now in the Bargello in Florence. Jacopo’s noble figure, in
turn, exercised a strong influence on the pose used by
Michelangelo in the Creation of Adam on the Sistine
Ceiling (see fig. 17.32). Jacopo’s heroic figures appealed to
Michelangelo, who must have studied these reliefs
during his two visits to Bologna. Of the garden itself, only
the Tree of Knowledge, represented as a fig tree, is
visible. A sense of muscular struggle dominates Jacopo’s

7.21. JACOPO DELLA QUERCIA. Rea Silvia or Public Charity ,
from the Fonte Gaia. 1418-19. Marble, 5'4" (1.63 m). Museum at
the former hospital of Sta. Maria della Scala, Siena.

200 * THE QUATTROCENTO

7.22. JACOPO DELLA QUERCJA. Main Portal. 1425-38.
Commissioned by Louis Aleman, Archbishop of Arles and Papal
l egate to Bologna, it S. Pctronio, Bologna.

Expulsion (fig. 7.24), its composition roughly the same as
that of his relief of the same subject on the Fonte Gaia. At
San Petronio, however, the figures are well enough pre-
served to exhibit the interplay of muscular forces and a
remarkable physicality. Adam attempts to resist, but he is
forcibly thrust away by a pugnacious angel. Eve’s pose is
based on that of a Venus pudica , the modest Venus type
favored by Greek sculptors and their Roman copyists.

The innovations of these Early Renaissance sculptors
changed the history of sculpture and had a powerful
impact on the painters of the period, as we shall see in the
next chapter.

7.24. JACOPO DELLA QUERCIA. Expulsion, c. 1429-34.
Marble, 39 x 36 V 4 " (99 x 92 cm) with frame, m Panel on Main
Portal, S. Petronio, Bologna.

7.23. JACOPO DELLA QUERCIA. Creation of Adam.
c. 1429-34. Marble, 39 x 36 V 4 " (99 x 92 cm) with frame.
m Panel on Main Portal, S. Petronio, Bologna.

TRANSITIONS IN TUSCAN SCULPTURE

2 0 1

TRANSITIONS IN FLORENTINE

PAINTING

D uring the first two decades of the Quat-
trocento, when Florentine sculptors
were already creating works in the new
Renaissance style, painters were still
producing altarpieces and fresco cycles
in variants of the Gothic style. They were not concerned
with the problems that inspired the sculptors, and today
their works seem to belong to another era. In their midst
there emerged, about 1420 or 1421, a non-Tuscan artist of
extraordinary originality who, judging from the impor-
tance of his commissions, must have created a sensation.

Gentile da Fabriano

Our earliest documentary reference to the painter Gentile
da Fabriano (c. 1385P-1427), in 1408, reveals that he was
living in Venice, far from his native town of Fabriano in
the Marches. In the Doge’s Palace, Gentile painted a fresco,
now lost, of a naval battle between the Venetians and the
Holy Roman Emperor, Otto III, that took place in the
midst of a great storm. Gentile’s depiction of the storm
clouds, waves, and battle was said to have been so natura-
listic that those who saw it were filled with terror; as we
shall see, Gentile was a master of naturalistic landscape
and atmospheric effects.

Although many of Gentile’s works are lost, a splendidly
preserved altarpiece in Florence (fig. 8.2) demonstrates his
unique combination of International Style richness and
naturalistic detail. Gentile’s patron for the Adoration of
the Magi was Palla Strozzi, perhaps the richest man in the
city. Narrative subjects were unusual for Florentine altar-

pieces and the splendor of Gentile’s treatment was
unprecedented, but the destined location of the panel in a
sacristy justified both subject and splendor. The Adoration
of the Magi marks the moment when the infant Christ was
first shown to the Gentiles, and a sacristy is the area where
the clergy robe themselves and prepare for saying the
Mass, during which Christ becomes manifest in the
Eucharist on the altar. The theme and the gorgeous gar-
ments of the magi were thus appropriate. The frame recalls
earlier Gothic examples (compare fig. 5.3), but here an
exuberant vitality in the decorative elements unifies the
forms and the painted areas in the various roundels and
gables demonstrate a new interest in naturalism. The left
and right gables feature roundels of the Annunciation ,
while in the central gable a youthful God blesses the scene.
Prophets recline in the spandrels. In the predella, the
Nativity , the Flight into Egypt , and the Presentation in the
Temple appear almost as one continuous strip. The prolific
ornamentation comes to a climax in the naturalistically
represented flowers and fruits in the frames, which burst
from their Gothic openings as if they are growing out over
the gold itself.

Three small scenes in the high arches of the main panel
narrate earlier moments in the journey of the magi to Beth-
lehem. In the left arch, the magi gaze at the star from a
mountain top. Before them stretches a wavy sea, with ships
waiting at the shore. In the central arch, the magi ride up
a curving road toward the open gate of Jerusalem. In the
right arch they are about to enter the walls of Bethlehem.
In the foreground they arrive at their destination — the cave
of Bethlehem, with ox, ass, and manger, the ruined shed,

8.1. MASACCIO. St. Peter Baptizing the Neophytes . 1420s. Fresco, 8'1" X 5'8" (2.47 x 1.7 m). Brancacci Chapel, Sta. Maria del Carmine,
Florence. See also figs. 8.7-8. 8. It has been suggested that the landscape in this scene was painted by Masolino. This fresco was painted in ten days.

TRANSITIONS IN FLORENTINE PAINTING * 2-0 3

and the modest family. The oldest magus prostrates
himself before the Christ Child, his crown beside him on
the ground; the second kneels and lifts his crown; the
youngest, waiting his turn, still wears his. This right-to-left

sequence as the magi approach Christ seems almost cine-
matic. Attendants crowd the stage; some restrain horses,
which are shown from both front and back, a composi-
tional motif that will later become common in Italian art.

8.2. GEdNTTFF DA FABR1 AlSO. Adoration of the Magi (Strozzi altarpiece). Dated May 1423. Panel, 9T0" x 9'3" (3 x 2.82 m).

Uffizi Gallery, Florence. The right predella, the Presentation in the Temple , is a copy; the original is in the Louvre, Paris. Commissioned
by Palla Strozzi for his family burial chapel, the Sacristy of Sta. Trinita, Florence. A biography of the banker Palla Strozzi was included
in a compendium of the lives of famous Florentines written in the fifteenth century by the humanist and book-dealer Vespasiano da Bisticci.

2 0 4

THE QUATTROCENTO

Others toy with monkeys and leopards or release
falcons. The panoramic views and the rendering of farms,
distant houses, and vineyards suggest that Gentile may
have seen Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s Government series in
Siena (see figs. 4.28^4-. 30). Gentile’s landscape back-
grounds and realistic animals were also influenced by
Lombard painting (see figs. 5.21, 15.5). Gentile can be
classified as an International Gothic artist, but his art is
distinct from that of Lorenzo Monaco and the other Late
Gothic painters in Florence (see fig. 5.12). He was unin-
terested in profiles, for example, and throughout his work
line is understood as part of a directional flow not on the
surface but in space, whether this flow is seen in the pro-
cessions in the background, the fluid curves of a horse’s
massive body, or the undulating drapery of silks, velvets,
and other fine fabrics.

The birds and animals in the Adoration are represented
with scrupulous naturalism, while the figures have a new
psychological realism. Irreverent attendants exchange
glances and, it seems, jokes as their royal masters are
caught up in worship, or they look upward in suspense at
a pair of fighting birds. The two midwives, like some
guests at a wedding, examine one of the gifts as if to assess
its value. While chained monkeys chatter happily, the ox
looks patiently down toward the Christ Child. Over the
rim of a king’s halo the ass stares with enormous eyes, his
ears lifted as if catching unaccustomed sounds. The care-
fully observed dog in the right foreground, wearing a
bejeweled collar, seems to be imitating the magi in adopt-
ing a position of reverence toward the Christ Child — until

the horse steps on him. In the background other dogs chase
hares, horses prance and rear, one horse kicks another who
then complains, and — in one astonishing detail — two sol-
diers seem to be mugging a wayfarer. Gentile seems intent
on re-creating the whole fabric of the visible world.

His color is subdued and rich, full of subtle hints and
reflections. He may have studied Florentine sculpture and
perhaps even the paintings of Masaccio that we will be dis-
cussing shortly; the modeling of some of the heads and the
sharply foreshortened figure removing the spurs from the
youngest king suggest this possibility. Nonetheless, within
this display of visual richness and naturalism, certain basic
archaisms remain. In the main panel of the altarpiece,
Gentile shows little interest in recent investigations of
space and illusionism: as in Trecento painting, his figures
seem too large for their setting, gold leaf over molded
gesso is used for the damasks and gilded ornaments, and
the landscape carries us to a distant horizon only to end in
a gold background.

In the predella scenes below, however, Gentile makes a
revolutionary break with tradition by abandoning the flat
gold or undifferentiated blue background and representing
a sky with atmosphere and natural light. The Nativity (fig.
8.3), like that of Lorenzo Monaco (see fig. 5.13), is
founded on the vision of St. Bridget, but in this painting
the light effects are more natural. Although the pool of
light emanating from the Christ Child is still a surface of
gold leaf with incised rays, Gentile also represents the
effects of this light as it shines upon the ceiling of the cave
and the faces of the kneeling animals. After illuminating

8.3. GENTILE DA FABRIANO. Nativity , on the predella of the Strozzi altarpiece (fig. 8.2). 1423. Panel, 12 V 4 x 29 V 2 " (32 x 75 cm).

TRANSITIONS IN FLORENTINE PAINTING * 205

8.4. GENTILE DA FABRIANO. Flight into Egypt , on the predella of the Strozzi altarpiece (fig. 8.2). 1423. Panel, I 2 V 4 x 43 V 4 " (32 x 110 cm).

the Virgin, it casts her shadow on the shed and then casts
the shadow of the shed itself upon the underside of the
lean-to where the midwives have taken shelter — one
curious, the other napping. This light even picks out the
branches of the tree under which Joseph sleeps, making a
pattern of light against the dark hills. A flood of gold,
issuing from the angel announcing the news to the shep-
herds, illuminates one portion of the hills; the other hills
billow softly against a night sky dotted with shining stars.

The exquisite attention to nature in this scene is still
partly Trecentesque, for it is miraculous rather than
natural light that illuminates the scene and casts the
shadows (see fig. 3.30). Yet this is the first painting we
know that contains the source of illumination within the
picture and maintains its effect so consistently on the rep-
resented objects; the supernatural is here treated as if it
were natural. The little ruined structure is the same as the
one painted in the principal panel above; the only differ-
ence is that between December 25 (the birth of Jesus), in
the predella, and January 6 (the arrival of the magi), in the
main panel, the barren ground has brought forth flowering
and fruit-laden trees. Apart from the religious meaning of
the scene, the effect is both naturalistic and deeply poetic —
especially the dark, distant hills and starry sky.

Equally convincing is the Flight into Egypt (fig. 8.4).
The little family, still attended by the midwives, moves
along a pebbly road through a rich Tuscan landscape
toward a distant city. A sun, raised in relief and gilded,
lights the farms and hillsides, and the natural light that
seems to wash over the fields, giving the effect of grain ripe
for harvesting, is also represented through the use of gold
leaf underlying the paint. Distant hills and towers rise
against a soft, blue sky — the first natural daytime sky we
know in Italian art. Darker toward the zenith, lighter
toward the horizon, it is clearly represented with atmos-
pheric perspective. Drifting clouds partly hide one fortified

villa. So velvety is the landscape and so subtly does the
light dance across rocks, pebbles, foliage, and people that
we easily accept the scene as natural, in spite of the dis-
proportionately large scale of the figures.

Gentile’s stay in Florence was short, but his influence
there was incalculable. As far as can be determined, he was
the first Italian painter to implement the atmospheric
discoveries made by Donatello and realized in northern
Europe in the miniatures of the Limbourg brothers. He is
also, as far as we know, the first Italian painter to depict
consistently shadows cast by light from an identifiable
source. Gentile put into practice Lorenzo Ghiberti’s
maxim, “Nothing can be seen without light.”

Masolino and Masaccio

No artists in Florence in the early 1420s understood more
clearly Gentile’s innovations than two painters who, in
spite of being unlikely partners, collaborated on several
works. They shared the name Tommaso and the nickname
Maso, the Italian version of “Tom.” One was known as
Masolino (“Little,” or “Refined,” Tom), the other as
Masaccio (the suffix “accio” in Italian usually means
“ugly” or “bad” but it can also mean something big and
impressive). Perhaps these nicknames were coined to dis-
tinguish the two according to appearance, character, or
style. Masolino, little concerned with the problems and
ideals that inspired the sculptors of the time, created an
artificial world of refined shapes and elegant manners,
flowerlike colors, and unreal distances. Masaccio, on the
other hand, seems to have been uninterested in traditional
notions of beauty. One of the revolutionary painters of the
Western tradition, he was profoundly influenced by the
world of space, emotion, and action that contemporary
sculptors had discovered. Yet the two artists managed to
work together.

2 0 6

THE QUATTROCENTO

Tommaso di Cristofano Fini — Masolino — was born
about 1400 in Panicale in the upper Valdarno (Arno
Valley). He joined the Arte dei Medici e Speziali in 1423.
Much of his life was spent away from Florence; his most
adventurous trip took him to Hungary in the service of the
Florentine condottiere Pippo Spano, from September 1425
to July 1427. Later he worked in Rome and then, about
1435, in the Lombard village of Castiglione Olona, where
he probably died in 1436. Tommaso di Ser Giovanni di
Mone Cassai — Masaccio — was born in 1401 in what is
today San Giovanni Valdarno, not far from Panicale. In
January 1422 he joined the guild in Florence and worked
there and, in 1426, in Pisa. In 1428 he went to Rome,
where he died either later that year or in 1429.

The old tradition that Masolino was Masaccio’s teacher
was laid to rest by the discovery of an early work by
Masaccio, a Madonna and Child with Saints (fig. 8.5) in a
small church at Cascia di Reggello, on the slopes of the
mountain mass that dominates Masaccio’s native town.
The painting shows Masaccio as a young artist with a per-
sonal style that is uniquely his own, without any recourse
to the traditions that characterize the style of Masolino.
The roughness, impulsiveness, and freedom exhibited in
this triptych, dated April 23, 1422, seem to justify Vasari’s

account of Masaccio as an artist who cared nothing about
material considerations — neither the clothes he wore, the
food he ate, the lodgings he inhabited, nor the money he
received — so completely was he on fire with “le cose
dell’arte” (literally, “the things of art”). The twenty-one-
year-old artist painted a rather stiff Madonna, with a high
forehead, staring eyes, and a weak chin, on a traditional
inlaid marble throne. The Christ Child, homely and stiff-
limbed, holds a bunch of grapes and a veil and, like a real
baby, stuffs two fingers into his mouth. Two angels kneel
facing the throne so that their faces are almost completely
lost from view — a pose known as lost profile, which
directs the viewer’s attention into the illusion of depth. The
angels’ wings preserve the traditional rainbow gradations,
but the feathers are as disheveled as those of urban spar-
rows. On either side stand pairs of morose saints. Under
the guise of this naturalism, the triptych still discloses its
traditional religious content, for the grapes Christ holds
are a symbol of the Eucharist.

Little trace remains in the triptych of the Gothic or of
Ghiberti’s mellifluous folds (see fig. 7.8), and at first sight
there appears no influence of Gentile either. But Gentile is
documented in Florence already in 1420, and it may have
been his style that suggested to the young painter the

8.5. MASACCIO. Madonna and Child with Saints. 1422. Panel, 42 V2 x 6OV2" (1 x 1.5 m). Uto S. Giovenale, Cascia di Reggello.

TRANSITIONS IN FLORENTINE PAINTING

2 0 7

sketchiness with which he painted the wings of the angels
and the hair and beards of the saints. But already Masac-
cio has gone farther than Gentile. The hands and limbs and
the folds of the angels’ tunics in Masaccio’s painting exist
as forms defined by direct ordinary daylight. Already at
twenty-one years of age, Masaccio had assimilated the
lesson of Donatello’s St. George and the Dragon (see fig.
7.14), carved only one or two years earlier.

One year later, in 1423, Masolino signed a dainty
Madonna and Child (fig. 8.6). Its style, closely related to
that of Lorenzo Monaco and of Ghiberti, shows no trace
of Masaccio’s brutal realism. The delicately modeled fea-
tures of the Virgin are typical of Masolino’s female faces

8.6. MASOLINO. Madonna and Child. 1423. Panel, 37 3 A x 20 V 2 "
(96 x 52 cm). Kunsthalle, Bremen. The frame is original.

throughout his career, while the sweetness of the Christ
Child, the tenderness with which he touches the Virgin’s
neck, and the easy curvilinear flow of the drapery are all
within the conventions of conservative Florentine style.
Only the modeling of the round forms in light and shade
suggests that Masolino too was aware of the new develop-
ments in painting.

THE BRANCACCI CHAPEL. The most important
manifesto of a new pictorial style was the decoration of
the Brancacci family chapel in the Carmelite Church of
Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence with a cycle by
Masaccio and Masolino (figs. 8.7-8.16) that would
become a model for generations of later Florentine artists,
including Michelangelo.

In the cloister alongside the church, Masaccio had
earlier painted a celebrated fresco of the church’s conse-
cration that included a procession of contemporary, recog-
nizable Florentines. This influential work was destroyed;
only a few drawings of it by later artists survive, including
one by the youthful Michelangelo, whose nose was broken
in a fistfight here while he was studying the frescoes.

The Brancacci Chapel also suffered losses over time.
In the mid-eighteenth century, the paintings of the vault
and lunettes were destroyed and replaced with a dome fres-
coed in that era’s style. In 1771, a fire devastated much of
the church; the Brancacci Chapel suffered only small areas
of loss but the rest of the church was largely destroyed.

Because of evidence suggesting that the lost vault and
lunette frescoes, where painting would have begun, were
by Masolino, it has been proposed that he alone received
the original commission and was later joined by Masaccio,
but this is by no means certain, especially given the manner
in which they often worked together on other projects. The
dating of the chapel frescoes is also uncertain, with some
scholars placing them all in 1424-25, before Masolino’s
trip to Hungary and Masaccio’s stay in Pisa in 1426, and
others suggesting that work continued in 1427-28. Some
suggest that the two painters worked together at some time
during the fall of 1427 and/or the spring of 1428. Whether
Brunelleschi also played a role in designing the chapel’s
frescoes is uncertain, but they are framed with pilasters
and entablatures in the new, Brunelleschian style (see fig.
8.9). It is also unclear how much of the cycle was left
unfinished when the two painters departed for Rome in the
spring of 1428; physical evidence suggests that portraits of
the Brancacci patrons may have been destroyed after the
family was exiled in 1435. In any case, Filippino Lippi was
brought in to finish the frescoes in the chapel in the early
1480s. A restoration during the 1980s removed layers of
grime, revealing colors that represent a return to Giotto
and subtle atmospheric and landscape details.

208

THE QUATTROCENTO

8.7. MASACCIO, MASOLINO, and FILIPPINO LIPPI. Fresco cycle. Brancacci Chapel, Sta. Maria del Carmine, Florence.

The miracle-working icon on the altar of the Brancacci Chapel is known as St. Mary of the People (Santa Maria del Popolo). It was in Sta.
Maria del Carmine by 1315, but was probably moved into the chapel only in 1422. Between 1422 and 1434 the chapel was owned by Felice
Brancacci, the nephew of Pietro di Piuvichese Brancacci (d. 1366/67), who founded the chapel. The money to pay for the frescoes may have
been the 200 florins left to the monks of the Carmine by Pietro’s son Antonio when he died c. 1383/90. Another possible source for funds was
Pietro’s widow, Mona Ghetta, who died c. 1414. If these earlier legacies were depleted, it is possible that Felice, as owner of the chapel, also
participated in funding his family burial chapel. Felice, who served as the Florentine ambassador to Cairo in the early 1420s, fled Florence,
never to return, when Cosimo de’ Medici returned from exile in 1434. His property was confiscated.

TRANSITIONS IN FLORENTINE PAINTING

z o 9

The chapel frescoes, with two exceptions, represent
scenes from the life of St. Peter, the first pope (figs.
8. 7-8. 8). Since the founding patron of the chapel was
named Pietro, the choice of his patron saint for the fresco
cycle is not unexpected. At the same time, certain aspects
of the cycle can be related to the history of the Carmelite
Order, suggesting that the clergy at the church may also
have played a role in the choice and interpretation of
the theme.

The most problematic of the frescoes in terms of theme
is probably the most famous: Masaccio’s Tribute Money
(figs. 8.9-8.10), a subject (Matthew 17:24-27) that was
seldom represented. When Christ and the apostles arrived
at Capernaum, Peter was confronted by a Roman tax-
gatherer who demanded the usual half-drachma tribute.
Peter, returning to Christ for instructions, was told that he
would find the money in the mouth of a fish near the shore
of Lake Galilee. He caught the fish, collected the money,
and paid the Roman official, who then departed.

Out of this episode, Masaccio built a scene of great
solemnity. He also revised the story. In the middle of the
fresco the tax-collector comes directly before Christ and
the apostles, who are represented not “at home,” as in the
text, but standing in a semicircle before a landscape that
suggests the river plain where Florence is located. Peter
points to our left, indicating that Christ has directed him
to Lake Galilee. There, in the background, Peter finds the
fish in shallow water, and on the far right, in the fore-

ground, he pays what is due. Center stage is, therefore,
occupied by the confrontation of temporal and spiritual
power. As Christ speaks to the apostles, their faces betray
surprise, indignation, and concern.

The assessment and payment of taxes has a complex
social and political history. One aspect of the Florentine
debate was whether the clergy could be taxed, a problem
for which the story of the Tribute Money provides a bibli-
cal precedent. Whether or not there is an explicit Floren-
tine reference here, Masaccio placed the scene on the banks
of the Arno. His semicircular arrangement of heavily
cloaked figures may have been influenced by Nanni di
Banco’s impressive Four Crowned Martyrs (see fig. 7.15).
Masaccio’s noble and bold figures certainly suggest that
the young artist had studied the behavior of light on the
figures, faces, and drapery masses of the powerful figures
created by contemporary Florentine sculptors.

In his landscape, however, Masaccio has surpassed
sculptors and painters alike. The panoramas of Ambrogio
Lorenzetti and Andrea da Firenze had been depicted partly
from above and always ended in a flat, abstract back-
ground, as if the mountains and trees were placed in front
of an impenetrable wall (see figs. 4.30, 5.1). Masaccio,
adopting Donatello’s low point of view and atmospheric
distance, produced a landscape of a grandeur unknown
before his time. The wide plane of the impenetrable wall is
here dissolved, as it was in the tiny predella panel of the
Flight into Egypt in Gentile’s Strozzi altarpiece (see fig.

8.8. Iconographic diagram of the fresco cycle at the Brancacci Chapel, Sta. Maria del Carmine, Florence. Diagram by Sarah Cameron Loyd.
The thumbnail picture included for orientation is Masaccio’s Tribute Money (see fig. 8.9).

210 * THE QUATTROCENTO

8.9. MASACCIO. Tribute Money. 1420s. Fresco, 8'1" x 197"
(2.47 x 5.97 m). Brancacci Chapel, Sta. Maria del Carmine, Florence.
The head of Christ is painted on one of the last giomate of the
fresco, probably because this is where a nail, driven into the plaster,
had been used as the fulcrum for a string employed to determine the
perspective recession of the building to the right. The head of Christ
is in the style of Masolino and some have suggested that it was
actually painted by him. This fresco was painted in thirty-one days.

8.4). The view recedes harmoniously, with none of
Gentile’s medieval leaps in scale, past the plain and the
riverbanks, over ridges and distant mountains, some snow-
capped, to the sky and the clouds.

Within this landscape, Masaccio’s rugged figures stand
and move at their ease. Both figures and landscape are rep-
resented with the full power of the new style that Masac-
cio has developed. Objects, forms, faces, figures, and
masses of heavy drapery all exist in light, which models
them and sets them convincingly in space. The light is one
of the great innovations in this fresco, for it is not only
consistent — coming from what seems to be a single
source — but it seems to come from the right, where the
actual window of the chapel is located, so that natural
light illuminates the fresco from the same direction, greatly
enhancing its naturalism.

The background is filled with atmosphere. Misty
patches of woodland are sketched near the banks. Masac-
cio’s brush seems to have moved with a new ease and
freedom, representing not hairs but hair, not leaves but
foliage, not waves but water, not physical entities but
optical impressions. At times the brush seems to have
applied paint in a manner similar to that used by such
nineteenth-century Impressionists as Edouard Manet or
Claude Monet.

Masaccio depicts the apostles as Florentines — not the
officials of the Florentine oligarchy but “men of the
street,” like the artisans and peasants on whose support
the republic depended (fig. 8.10). They are painted with
conviction and sympathy — sturdy youths and bearded
older men, rough-featured, each a unique personality. As
if to symbolize both the spatial existence of the figures
and the individuality of the personalities, their haloes are

8.10. Head of St Peter , detail of fig. 8.9.

TRANSITIONS IN FLORENTINE PAINTING * 211

projected in perspective and touch or overlap at random
angles. The tax-collector, who is seen from the rear in
contrapposto , is as astonished as the apostles at the
message of Christ.

On the same upper tier, just to the right of the altar,
Masaccio painted St. Peter Baptizing the Neophytes (see
fig. 8.1), the scene set at a cold mountain spring high in the
headwaters of the Arno. Here the artist shows himself the
equal of Ghiberti and Jacopo della Quercia (see figs. 7.3,
7.23-7.24) in the representation of the nude figure; subse-
quent generations were impressed by the realism of the
shivering figure awaiting his turn, the man drying himself
with a towel, and the muscular youth kneeling in the fore-
ground, over whose head St. Peter pours the cold water.
Painted with broad strokes, this figure conveys a sense of
what it would be like to be cold and almost naked in the
presence of inhospitable nature. The massive figures are
defined by Masaccio’s new chiaroscuro technique —
smooth and consistent in the surfaces of legs, chests, and
shoulders, strikingly sketchy in the heads in the back-
ground. The figures of the two young men at the extreme
left, who are wearing the Florentine cappuccio wrapped
around an underlying framework, a mazzocchio (see fig.
11.4), appear to be portraits.

Masolino’s principal contribution to the upper tier is the
fresco opposite the Tribute Money , the Healing of the
Lame Man and the Raising of Tabitha (fig. 8.11), two

miracles performed by St. Peter in Lydda and Joppa.
Although it would have been difficult for Masolino, given
his dual subject, to create a composition as close-knit and
unified as that of Masaccio’s Tribute Money , the two fres-
coes were constructed using the same perspective scheme,
with the vanishing point at the same height within each
fresco; perhaps the two painters were working on the two
facing scenes simultaneously. Masolino telescoped the
space between the two scenes with a continuous Florentine
city background, its simple houses, projected in perspec-
tive, now sometimes attributed to Masaccio. On the left St.
Peter and St. John, with haloes still parallel to the picture
plane, command the lame man to rise and walk; on the
right they appear in the home of Tabitha (on the ground
floor, not the upper story mentioned in the text) and raise
her from the dead. The two elegantly dressed young men
in the center are the messengers sent from Joppa to fetch
St. Peter and St. John with the greatest speed, even though
their impassive faces reveal no sense of urgency.

Masolino’s drapery lacks both the fullness and the sup-
pleness of Masaccio’s, and there is little sense of the under-
lying figure. Expressions seem forced, and the drama
unconvincing. The representation of light, however, is
sophisticated; rocks scattered on the ground cast shadows
that are directly related to the placement of the window
within the chapel. In addition to emphasizing the consis-
tent light source and adding another measurable element

8.11. MASOLINO. Healing of the Lame Man and the Raising of Tabitha. 1420s. Fresco, 8’1" x 19'3" (2.47 x 5.9 m). Brancacci Chapel, Sta.
Maria del Carmine, Florence. This fresco was painted in thirty days.

212 * THE QUATTROCENTO

to the spatial recession, they may also be a reference to St.
Peter, whose name means “stone” and who is recognized
as the “rock” on which the Roman Church was founded.

To modern eyes the divergent styles of the two friends
collide abruptly in the scenes representing the Temptation
(fig. 8.12) and Expulsion (fig. 8.13), which face each other
across the entrance arch. Masolino and Masaccio may well

have found the division of labor reasonable — to Masolino
the less dramatic scene, to Masaccio a moment of personal
and universal tragedy. Restoration has removed leaves that
were added later to cover the figures’ genitals, and Adam
and Eve are represented as naked. How these scenes are
related to the main cycle has been much debated; but
perhaps the reason for their inclusion was based on the

S.12. MASOLINO. Temptation. 1420s. Fresco, 7' x 2 1 1 1 1
,214 x 89 cm). Brancacci Chapel, Sta. Maria del Carmine,
Florence. This fresco was painted in six days.

8.13. MASACCIO. Expulsion. 1420s. 7' x 2T1
(214 x 89 cm). Brancacci Chapel, Sta. Maria del
Carmine. This fresco was painted in four days.

TRANSITIONS IN FLORENTINE PAINTING * 21 3

idea that the Church, under Peter and the papacy, is the
institution that helps humanity overcome the sin of Adam
and Eve. Whatever the theological or historical basis for
their inclusion, these paired nude figures are not usually a
part of the Peter legend.

Masolino painted a gentle Adam and an equally mild
Eve, undisturbed by the trouble that is about to ensue. She
throws one arm lightly around the tree trunk while, from
the bough above, the serpent’s human head tries to attract
her attention. Adam and Eve’s flesh appears naturally soft,
but the feet hang instead of support, and the figures are so
elegantly silhouetted against the dark background that
they seem like cut-outs.

Masaccio’s Expulsion was perhaps influenced by Jacopo
della Quercia’s relief on the Fonte Gaia, which is similar in
composition to, the one in Bologna (see fig. 7.24), but the
painter infused the scene with even greater intensity. He
abandoned the physical contest between the angel and
Adam; now a calm, celestial messenger hovers above the
gate, holding a sword in one hand and pointing with the
other to the barren world outside Eden. Adam moves forth
at the angel’s bidding as if driven by his shame. He ignores
his nakedness to bury his face in his hands (fig. 8.14). His
mouth contorts in anguish and the muscles of his abdomen
convulse. Eve remembers to cover her nakedness, but she
throws her head back, her mouth open in a cry of despair.
The drama has been reduced to its essential elements: two
naked, suffering humans pushed out into the cold
unknown, forced from an idyllic garden to face a future of
work and then death.

8.14. MASACCIO. Heads of Adam and of Eve, detail of fig. 8.13.

The scenes in the lower register flanking the altar, both
by Masaccio, share a common perspective that converges
behind the altarpiece. On the left is St. Peter Healing with
His Shadow (fig. 8.15), a subject as rare as the Tribute
Money and one that would have been impossible to repre-
sent before cast shadows entered the artistic repertory. The
setting is a Florentine alley with projecting rooms sup-
ported on struts. As the architecture recedes, St. Peter
walks toward us, not even looking at the sick over whom
his shadow passes. The vivid face of the lame man at the
lower left is an unforgettable example of Masaccio’s obser-
vation. Masaccio’s 1427 tax declaration, written in his
own hand, is preserved, and the words are set out with a
simple dignity that seems consistent with the narrative
interpretation seen in this fresco. Some of the heads seem
to be portraits; it has been suggested that the bearded man
in a short blue smock is a portrait of Donatello.

8.15. MASACCIO. St. Peter Healing with His Shadow. 1420s.
Fresco, 7'7" x 5'4" (2.3 x 1.6 m). Brancacd Chapel, Sta. Maria del
Carmine. This fresco was painted in ten days.

2 14

THE QUATTROCENTO

In Masaccio’s Raising of the Son of Theophilus and the
Enthronement of St . Peter (fig. 8.16), the artist has
adopted an S-shaped plan in depth for the figures, with one
group centered around the miracle at the left, the other
around Peter being adored by Carmelites at the right.
These curves, one moving toward us, the other away, are
locked in a rectilinear architectural enclosure, formed
partly by the palace of Theophilus, partly by the austere
architectural block before which St. Peter is enthroned.

The presence of the Carmelites in the same scene as Peter
may be a reference to a contemporary debate about the
origin of the Carmelites: while members of the order
argued that it had been founded by the prophet Elijah and
that some members were baptized by Peter himself, detrac-
tors maintained that the order had been founded in the
twelfth century in the Holy Land. By representing
Carmelites worshipping St. Peter, Masaccio supported the
Carmelite account of their ancient origins.

The architectural setting is by Masaccio, as are most of
the figures except for the five at the extreme left, eight in
the central section, and the delicate kneeling boy, all of
whom, style suggests, were painted by Filippino Lippi. The

palace of Theophilus shows the inspiration of Brunelleschi
in the Corinthian pilasters and pedimented windows,
which resemble those of the Ospedale degli Innocenti (see
fig. 6.13). The wall divided into repeated panels of inlaid
colored marble that forms the back of the scene is
enlivened by the freely painted trees and potted plants that
are placed in an asymmetrical sequence against the sky.

The composition is abstract and geometric. The masses
of the figures, projected so convincingly in depth and light,
are fixed within the patterns of the embracing curvilinear
and rectilinear framework within which they are set. Only
the central St. Peter (by Masaccio, with the exception of
the outstretched hand) is free to move and act. The
meaning of the fresco is reduced to simple and impelling
terms: St. Peter appears twice, at the two foci of the S-plan;
other mortals, including Theophilus, are only incidental
elements in the structures that revolve around the Church.

THE PISA POLYPTYCH. Masaccio worked in Pisa
from February to December of 1426 on a polyptych for a
Pisan church. At an unknown date it was dismembered, the
panels scattered and some lost. The effect of the surviving

8.16. MASACCIO (some areas painted by FILIPPINO LIPPI). Raising of the Son of Theophilus and the Enthronement of St. Peter . 1420s;
completed early 1480s. Fresco, 7'7" x 19'7" (2.3 x 6 m). Brancacci Chapel, Sta. Maria del Carmine.

The third figure from the right, who is staring out at us, is presumed to be a portrait of Masaccio. Masaccio’s part in this fresco was completed
in thirty- two days. Filippino, who usually spent a full day painting one of the portraits, spent another twenty-two days completing it.

TRANSITIONS IN FLORENTINE PAINTING * 2I 5

central panel, the Enthroned Madonna and Child
(fig. 8.17), is so overwhelming that it is a surprise to dis-
cover its modest dimensions. The looming monumentality
of the Virgin reveals Masaccio’s ability to elevate human
figures, with all their physical defects, to a level of
grandeur and power.

Some of the majesty of the figure doubtless derives from
the fact that we read the two-story throne with its
Corinthian columns as a work of architecture, imagining
gigantic proportions for its occupant by analogy. The
influence of Brunelleschi, if not his involvement, is again
evident. The Madonna towers above the cornice, her blue

8.17. MASACCIO. Enthroned Madonna and Child , from the Pisa
polyptych. 1426. Panel, 53V4 x 28 3 /4" (135 x 73 cm). National
Gallery, London. Commissioned by Giuliano di Ser Colino degli
Scarsi, a notary, for Sta. Maria del Carmine, Pisa.

cloak falling in heavy folds about the bold masses of her
shoulders and knees. Perhaps Masaccio made a model
throne and a clay figure with cloth arranged over it to
chart the behavior of light and shade; we know that this
was done by Andrea del Verrocchio and his pupils later in
the century. This could help explain the accuracy with
which Masaccio has painted the shadows cast on the
throne by its projecting wings and by the Virgin herself.
The faces conform to a type seen over and over again in
Masaccio’s work. The Christ Child, now totally nude, is
again behaving like a baby, eating the Eucharistic grapes
offered him by his mother (see fig. 8.5).

The panel is damaged; here and there passages of paint
have broken away, but worse is the overcleaning, which
has reduced the face of the Virgin to its underpaint. The
throne seems to built of pietra serena , the same gray stone
used by Brunelleschi. Its details, including the rosettes and
the S-shaped strigil ornament (imitated from ancient and
medieval sarcophagi still in Pisa; see Nicola Pisano’s
manger, fig. 2.20), are strongly projected, while the lutes in
the hands of the two angels demonstrate how skillfully
Masaccio could foreshorten complex objects; this interest
in recession and projection of forms in space again evokes
the impact of Brunelleschi. The haloes are set parallel to
the picture plane with the exception of that of the Christ
Child, which is foreshortened in depth. Unless this curious
juxtaposition of the planar and the foreshortened has a
meaning not yet discovered, it endures as an example of
the transitional nature of painting during the 1420s.

In designing the Crucifixion (fig. 8.18), which formed
the central pinnacle of the altarpiece, Masaccio seems to
have started by determining the spot where the observer
must stand to see the figures and forms correctly. The
cross, for example, is seen from below, and the body of
Christ is foreshortened upward, with the collarbones pro-
jecting in silhouette. The face inclines forward, looking
down into the upturned face of the spectator, as does the
figure of God the Father above Donatello’s St. George
niche (see fig. 7.13). The gold background may have been
stipulated by the patron, but the sense of mass and space
created by Masaccio is so convincing that the gold no
longer seems completely flat; it sinks into the distance to
become an illusion of golden air behind the figures. The
bush growing from the top of the cross once contained a
pelican striking her breast to feed her young, a medieval
symbol for the sacrifice of Christ.

The sacrifice is Masaccio’s theme, rather than the his-
torical incident, which is here reduced to four figures. The
Magdalen prostrates herself before the cross, her arms
thrown wide, while John the Evangelist, wrapped in grief,
seems to shrink into himself. Masaccio’s Mary stands with
dignity under the cross, her hands folded in prayer. Christ,

2 1 6

THE QUATTROCENTO

pale in death, his eyes closed and the crown of thorns low
upon his brow, seems to be suffering still. The Christus tri-
umphans of the twelfth century, the Christus patiens of the
Duecento, and the Christus mortuus of Giotto and his

Above : 8.18. MASACCIO. Crucifixion , from the summit of the
Pisa polyptych. 1426. Panel, 30V4 x 25V4 n (77 x 64 cm). Museo di
Capodimonte, Naples.

followers in the Trecento are fused and transfigured by
Masaccio’s new humane vision. And in these four small
figures, Masaccio achieves a drama of Aeschylean simplic-
ity and power. All the grandeur of the Brancacci frescoes is
here in miniature — all the beauty of light on the folds of
drapery, all the breadth of anatomical masses, all the
strength and sweetness of color. And nowhere more than
in this panel did Masaccio’s style deserve the characteriza-
tion given it in the later Quattrocento, when it was praised
for being: “puro, senza ornato” (“pure, without ornament”).

The epic breadth of Masaccio’s art is maintained even in
the predellas. The Adoration of the Magi (fig. 8.19) may
represent Masaccio’s comment on the profusion of
Gentile’s Strozzi altarpiece (see fig. 8.2), painted only three
years before, although the interval seems more like fifty.
Masaccio has adopted an eye-level point of view. He fills
the foreground with figures and then creates behind them
a landscape of simple masses that recedes with more
spatial conviction than the splendid miscellany of Gentile’s
world. The distant bay and promontories suggest the sea
coast near Pisa; the barren land masses may be based on
the eroded region called Le Baize, near the Pisan fortress
city of Volterra. The low viewpoint allows Masaccio to
compose a magnificent pattern of masses and spaces using
legs, both human and equine, and the flat shadows cast by
these legs on the ground. Masaccio’s soberly clad kings
arrive with only six attendants before the humble shed.
The vividly portrayed patron, Giuliano di Ser Colino, and
his son stand in contemporary costume just behind the
kings, the patterns of their cloaks a part of the structure of
the composition. Masaccio’s interest in foreshortening is
evident everywhere: note, for example, the ox, ass, and
saddle, all turned at various angles to the eye and therefore
differently foreshortened, or the white horse who lifts one
hind hoof gently and turns his head so that we can just

8.19. MASACCIO. Adoration of the Magi, from the predella of the Pisa polyptych. 1426. Panel, 8 V 4 x 24" (21 x 61 cm). Gemaldegalerie, Berlin.

TRANSITIONS IN FLORENTINE PAINTING ♦ 2 I 7

8.20. MASACCIO. Crucifixion
of St. Peter , from the predella of
the Pisa polyptych. 1426. Panel,
8^x12" (22x31 cm).
Gemaldegalerie, Berlin.

discern his beautiful right eye. Another example is the
groom at the extreme right who leans over toward us.

The same spatial principle is turned to dramatic effect in
the Crucifixion of St Peter (fig. 8.20). This subject
had presented difficulties for artists because St. Peter, to
avoid irreverent comparison with Christ, had insisted on
being crucified upside down. Masaccio meets the problem
by underscoring it; the diagonals of Peter’s legs are
repeated in the shapes of the two pylons, which seem to
have been based on the ancient Pyramid of Gaius Cestius
in Rome. Between the pyramids, the cross is locked into
the composition. Within the small remaining space the exe-
cutioners loom toward us with tremendous force as they
hammer in the nails. Peter’s halo, upside down, is shown in
perfect foreshortening.

THE TRINITY FRESCO. What may be Masaccio’s
most mature work is the fresco representing the central
mystery of Christian doctrine, the Trinity (fig. 8.21), in
Santa Maria Novella in Florence. To create the setting for
the Trinity , Masaccio painted a magnificent Renaissance
chapel. Its Corinthian pilasters and Ionic half-columns
flanking a coffered barrel vault conform so closely to the
architecture of Brunelleschi and are projected so accurately
in terms of his perspective principles that Brunelleschi
almost certainly must be credited with the design of this
architectural illusion. The details of the capitals are

painted with a precision atypical of Masaccio, further
suggesting that in this area he had some assistance. In the
narrow space in front of the pilasters kneel a man and
woman; these portraits of the donors seem so specific that
they must have been easily identifiable when they were
first painted.

Below the illusionistic chapel is a skeleton bearing the
epitaph: “Io fu gia quel che voi siete e quel chio son voi
anco sarete” (“I was once what you are, and what I am,
you also will be”). The configuration of skeleton and text
with the religious imagery above is obviously related to
tomb iconography. As part of a funerary monument, the
fresco would have been related to an altar where Mass
could be said for the deceased. Such an altar table may
have been installed in the space between the skeleton and
the Trinity .

While the patron and his wife are decisively placed
in front of the enframing architecture to suggest that they
exist within our space, the tomb enclosing the skeleton
is painted to suggest that it exists partly in our space but is
also partly recessed into the wall; by occupying both
realms the skeleton reinforces the words of the inscription.
The skeleton alludes not to the patron but to Adam,
over whose tomb it was believed Christ had been crucified.
Thus the fresco makes reference both to the original sin
of Adam and Eve and to the redemptive power of
Christ’s Crucifixion.

2 I 8

THE QUATTROCENTO

8.21. MASACCIO. Trinity with Mary, John the Evangelist , and Two Donors . c. 1426-27. Fresco, 21' x 10'5" (6.4 x 3.17 m, including base).
Sta. Maria Novella, Florence. It has recently been suggested that Masaccio’s fresco was part of a funerary complex dedicated to Berto di
Bartolomeo di Berto and his family, the Berti. The giomate reveal that this fresco was painted in twenty-seven or twenty-eight days.

TRANSITIONS IN FLORENTINE PAINTING * 219

Within the illusionistic chapel, Masaccio has shown
Golgotha reduced to symbolic terms — the sacrifice of
Christ as carried out through the will of the Father, who
stands on a kind of shelf toward the back of the chapel,
gazing fixedly outward and steadying the cross with his
hands. The figure of Christ is a Christus mortuus who
seems to have endured pain and is now past suffering; he
may be based on a wooden sculpture of the crucified
Christ made by Brunelleschi about 1412-13 and also in
Santa Maria Novella. The dove of the Holy Spirit flies
between the heads of Father and Son. Below the cross,
Mary does not look at her son but raises her hand to urge
us to contemplate his sacrifice. She is somber and deter-
mined, with no hint of the elegance or beauty with which
she is sometimes endowed. St. John seems lost in adoration
before the mystery. The portraits of the kneeling man and
woman are stoically calm. Here Calvary has been stripped
of its terrors. The kneeling Florentines pray to Mary and
John, who intercede with Christ; Christ in turn atones for
the sins of all humanity.

The pyramidal composition of figures ascends from the
mortals in our sphere, outside the arch, to God at its apex.
The perspective of the coffered vault above, on the other
hand, moves in the opposite direction to converge behind
the lightly painted mound of Golgotha at the base of the
cross, at exactly eye level. The ascending and descending
pyramids intersect in the body of Christ. In its reduction to
geometric essentials that unite figures and architecture,
forms and spaces, the composition could hardly be more
closely knit. Its power embodies the humanist Giannozzo
Manetti’s contention that the truths of the Christian reli-
gion are as clear as the axioms of mathematics. The com-
position suggests that the Trinity is the root of all being.

Within the imposing structure, the individual parts are
powerfully projected to suggest three-dimensionality and a
sense of mass. Details of arms, hands, and architecture
reveal startling effects of three-dimensionality. Even the
nails that impale Christ’s hands are painted to align with
the perspective scheme. The surface is rendered with
remarkable breadth and freedom. We can only speculate
what Masaccio might have accomplished had he lived
longer. When informed of his death, Brunelleschi is
reported to have said, “Noi abbiamo fatto una gran
perdita” (“We have had a great loss”).

Popular Devotion and Prints

The works of Masaccio represent a new and revolutionary
departure in the history of art, breaking decisively with the
Gothic style and providing a new simplicity and bold
naturalism thaMvas influential. While some of Masaccio’s
documented works are lost, including the panoramic

fresco of the consecration of Santa Maria del Carmine
that included portraits of many contemporary Florentines,
and others were damaged, enough works survive to
enable art historians to reconstruct his career and establish
his significance. This is not always the case. Only
infrequently, for example, have the relatively inexpensive
artworks created for the middle and lower classes survived.
When they do, the artists who created them usually
remain unidentified. One rare example of the prints
that circulated widely during this period is the Madonna
del Fuoco , the “Madonna of the Fire,” a woodblock print
that is so named because it survived a 1429 house fire and,
as a result, became a relic in the local cathedral in Forli,
north of Florence (fig. 8.22). The owner of the house is
documented as Brusi da Ripetrosa, a schoolteacher, pro-
viding proof that even a person of modest means could
afford such a devotional object. While only a handful of
authentic prints from this period survive, the fifteenth-
century representation of woodblock prints pinned or
pasted to the wall attests to their popularity and
widespread use.

The artist who created the Madonna del Fuoco , proba-
bly considered an artisan by his contemporaries, is
unknown, as is the Italian locale of the print’s creation.
The central image of the Madonna and Child, however,
has a boldness and simplicity that can be compared with
the style of Masaccio. There is little interest here in the
elegant draperies and curving lines of the International
Gothic because clarity and the ability to identify the
subject were foremost in the artist’s mind. The decorative
framework is minimal (note the rounded arch above the
Madonna) and the iconography is direct: it encompasses
the major themes of the crowned Madonna holding the
Child and the Annunciation and Crucifixion. These last
two are depicted as if represented in a fresco cycle, with the
Annunciation divided on the arch framing the Crucifixion;
whether this might be a reference to a specific location is
uncertain. The large sun and moon that flank the
Madonna are popular Marian symbols. The twenty-two
male and female saints who crowd the sides and the
predella below — including John the Baptist, Christopher
(patron saint of travelers), Francis, and Jerome — provide
a series of intercessors useful for the worshipper in differ-
ent situations.

This rare surviving example of an inexpensive work
intended for popular devotion is a reminder of the many
gaps in our knowledge about the Renaissance. We know
much more about the role of visual culture in the lives of
members of the elite such as the Brancacci and Strozzi and
of those who lived in monastic communities such as the
Carmelites than about the role images played in the lives of
the vast majority of the population.

220 * THE QUATTROCENTO

8.22. ITALIAN. Madonna del Fuoco. Before 1429. Woodcut colored by band, 19^Mx 15*%" (49 x 40 cm). Cathedral, Forli. The Madonna del
irMCK'O is the patron saint of the city of Forli,

TRANSITIONS IN P LORE N TINE PAINTING *

2 2 1

9.1. FRA ANGELICO. Annunciation and Scenes from the Life of the Virgin, c. 1432-34. Panel, 5'3" x5'll" (1.6x 1.8 m).
Museo Diocesano, Cortona. Commissioned as the high altar for the church of San Domenico in Cortona. The frame is original.

222 * THE LATE MIDDLE AGES

THE HERITAGE OF MASACCIO: FRA

ANGELICO AND FRA FILIPPO LIPPI

M asaccio undisputedly created a new
style of painting, but in 1428 his influ-
ence was neither as immediate nor as
far-reaching as that of his sculptural
contemporaries. The Florentine situa-
tion was unlike today’s, where artists must compete to stay
up to date in a market that has no interest in yesterday’s
ideas. It would be more fitting to compare Florence with
Paris in the 1880s, when the paintings by the Impression-
ist avant-garde were bought only by a few, and conserva-
tive historical, classicistic, and genre painters still ran the
salons and held the loyalty of the public. The Gothic style,
for example, continued in Florentine painting through the
1430s and into the 1440s and 1450s. Altarpieces with gold
backgrounds, pointed arches, tracery, and pinnacles were
commissioned and executed in quantity, as if Masaccio
had never lived. He had no close followers, but his ideas
bore fruit in the paintings of two artists who seem younger
only because they survived him by decades — Fra Angelico
and Fra Filippo Lippi — and in the work of others born
before Masaccio or a decade or so later. In the output of
these two painters, and in the mature creations of Ghiberti
and Donatello, we can watch the early Quattrocento sty-
listic heritage being transformed into something approach-
ing a common style.

The artists of the 1430s-1450s lived in and worked in a
society that was changing from the defensively republican
Florence of the first third of the Quattrocento. Although
threats from outside continued until 1454, when the Peace
of Lodi put an end to external warfare for forty years, the
political and territorial independence of Florence was no
longer threatened. But its republican integrity was more
fragile, and by mid-century the oligarchic state, in whose
government the artisan class was permitted at least token
participation, survived in name only. Political and eco-

nomic rivalry had led to the expulsion of Cosimo de’
Medici from Florence in 1433. He left as a private citizen,
but he returned in 1434 and became to all intents and pur-
poses lord of Florence. Cosimo and his descendants seldom
held office, but they maintained power by manipulating
the lotteries that governed the “election” of officials. Until
the second expulsion of the family in 1494, the Florentine
Republic was in effect a Medici principality, and Cosimo,
Piero, and Lorenzo treated foreign sovereigns as equals.

Paradoxically, this period encompassed the decline of
the Florentine banking houses, including that of the
Medici, but it also saw the establishment of a new social
and intellectual aristocracy among the Medici and their
supporters. These humanistically oriented patrons com-
missioned buildings, statues, portraits, and altarpieces in
the new classicizing style, and the elegance of Augustan
Rome replaced the rougher republican virtues seen in the
works of Masaccio, Nanni di Banco, and the early
Donatello. Although sumptuary laws still forbade luxury
and display in personal adornment, the palace and villas of
the Medici established a new level of luxury and conspicu-
ous consumption that had a powerful effect on the arts.

The religious life of Florence during this period was
dominated by Antonio Pierozzi (1389-1459), who joined
the Dominican Order in 1405 and served as Archbishop of
Florence from 1446 until his death. He was canonized in
the sixteenth century as St. Antoninus of Florence. A man
of blameless personal life, he allowed the revenues of his
archdiocese to accumulate while he lived in a simplicity
unexpected in the mid-Quattrocento. Except on ceremo-
nial occasions, he wore a threadbare Dominican habit. A
zealous reformer and compelling preacher and writer, St.
Antoninus also served as an ambassador for the Florentine
Republic. His Summa theologica and Summa confession-
alls were not published until after his death, but his ideas

THE HERITAGE OF MASACCIO: FRA ANGELICO AND FRA FILIPPO LIPPI * 223

were well known through his preaching, and his theories
of symbolism and morality will frequently be cited in the
pages that follow. For the sake of convenience he will here
be referred to as St. Antoninus, although he was not ele-
vated to sainthood until the sixteenth century.

At this juncture, it is convenient to examine the works of
the two monks Fra Angelico (late 1390s-1455) and Fra
Filippo Lippi (c. 1406-1469). Their names were men-
tioned in a letter written from Perugia in 1438 by the
painter Domenico Veneziano to Piero the Gouty, son and
eventual successor of Cosimo de’ Medici. Trying to obtain
a commission in Florence, Domenico listed Fra Angelico
and Fra Filippo as the most important painters of the day
and reported that both were overwhelmed with commis-
sions. In their roughly parallel development we can see the
emergence of the new Renaissance style.

Giovanni da Fiesole, born Guido di Pietro, became a
monk and is known to us as Fra Angelico (“the Angelic
Friar”). He has long been called Beato (“Blessed”)
Angelico by the Italians, though he was not actually beati-
fied until 1983. Fra Filippo Lippi, on the other hand, was
a monk who fathered two children by a nun. Although Fra
Filippo had a personal and visible connection with Masac-
cio, we know little for certain about his early style. We
discuss Fra Angelico first because he was the leading
painter of Florence in the 1430s, and it was he who inter-
preted Masaccio’s work in a form that exercised a pro-
found and lasting influence on Renaissance art.

Fra Angelico

In 1417 the artist we know as Fra Angelico was docu-
mented as the painter Guido di Pietro. In 1423 he is first
mentioned as Fra Giovanni da Fiesole. He was probably
born in the late 1390s and was in his fifties when he died
in 1455. For more than a generation, he worked as an
artist in the service of the Dominican Order, first at San
Domenico in Fiesole and then at San Marco in Florence
under the priorate of St. Antoninus, whom he eventually
succeeded as prior. Even before his death, he was extolled
as “the angelic painter,” a description that led to the name
by which he is popularly known today.

The earliest fully Renaissance painting by Fra Angelico
is his Descent from the Cross (fig. 9.2). This work had
originally been commissioned by Palla Strozzi from
Lorenzo Monaco, and was intended for his burial chapel
in the Sacristy of Santa Trinita, where its subject would
complement Gentile’s Adoration of the Magi (see fig. 8.2)
in the same chapel. Lorenzo completed only the pinnacles
before his death in 1425, and the unfinished work was
later given over to Fra Angelico. The painting of the
central panel may have been started in the late 1420s or

early 1430s and was almost certainly finished by Novem-
ber 1434, when Cosimo de’ Medici returned to Florence
and members of the opposition party, including Palla
Strozzi, were exiled.

At first sight, the artist seems to have been hampered by
the pre-existing frame, but then we realize that Fra
Angelico has exploited the Gothic arches, utilizing the
central panel for the cross and ladders and the side arches
to frame the cityscape of Jerusalem on the left and a rocky
landscape on the right. This monastic painter presents us
with a world in which every shape is clear, every color
bright and sparkling. Christ is gently lowered from the
cross by John, Mary Magdalen, and others and mourned
by groups gathered to either side. On the right stands a
group of men in contemporary Florentine dress; one,
wearing a red cappuccio , holds the nails and the crown of
thorns, as if to encourage meditation. Both he and the
young man kneeling in adoration are characterized as beati
by gold rays emanating from their heads.

The figures, grouped on a flowering lawn, are united by
their devotion to the crucified Christ, whose body is
depicted with Fra Angelico’s characteristic emotional
restraint and grace, emphasizing beauty rather than suffer-
ing. One barely notices the bruises on Christ’s torso or the
blood on his forehead. Instead, attention is concentrated
on the quiet face and on the light that emphasizes the silky
surfaces of hair and beard.

Fra Angelico stylizes distant Jerusalem as an array of
multicolored geometric shapes. The storm cloud that dark-
ened the sky during the Crucifixion still casts a shadow
over some of the city. On the right side, trees provide a
loose screen through which we look into a hilly Tuscan
landscape punctuated by towns, villages, farmhouses,
castles, and villas under a sky filled with soft clouds.

The Descent from the Cross was a milestone. At this
time, no painter in Europe except the Flemish artist Jan
van Eyck could surpass Angelico’s control of the resources
of the new naturalism, and none could match the monu-
mental harmony of figures and landscape he created here.

Fra Angelico’s splendid Annunciation altarpiece (fig.
9.1) was painted for the church of San Domenico in the
Tuscan town of Cortona. The setting is a portico of
Corinthian columns that divide the panel into thirds — two
defined by the arches of his portico, the third occupied by
three receding arches and a garden. The angel enters the
portico, bowing and genuflecting before Mary, who is
seated on a chair draped with gold brocade. Directly above
her head, in the shadows under the star-studded ceiling,
the dove of the Holy Spirit appears surrounded by a golden
light. A sculpted representation of the prophet Isaiah looks
down from the spandrel between the arches. Behind the
angel’s head, through a doorway and past a partially

224

THE QUATTROCENTO

9.2. FRA ANGELICO. Descent from the Cross. Probably completed 1434. Panel, 9' x 9'4" (2.75 x 2.85 m). Museum of S. Marco,
Florence. Frame and pinnacles by Lorenzo Monaco, c. 1420-22. Commissioned by Palla Strozzi.

drawn curtain, we can see into Mary’s bedchamber. The
interaction between Gabriel and Mary is made clear in the
texts that course between them. The upper and lower texts
are summaries of Gabriel’s greeting: above, “Hail, thou
that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art
thou among women” (Luke 1:28); and, below, “The Holy
Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest
shall overshadow thee” (Luke 1:35). These two texts can
be read from left to right. In response, Mary abandons her
book to cross her hands on her chest in acceptance of her
destiny, replying, in the center text, “Behold the handmaid
of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word” (Luke
1:38). This response is written in reverse, from Mary to the
angel, and also upside down, apparently so that it can be

read by higher powers. The garden at the left, a symbol of
Mary’s virginity, is included in a number of Quattrocento
Annunciations and even some Cinquecento examples. It
illustrates the words of the Song of Songs: “A garden
enclosed is my sister, my spouse” (4:12). St. Antoninus had
connections with the Dominican community in Cortona,
and already in this early work Fra Angelico follows his
doctrine of the “garden of the soul,” a set of meditations
for penitents written in Italian. Fra Angelico also identifies
the garden with Eden, for at the upper left the weeping
figures of Adam and Eve are being gently but firmly
expelled. This association is natural since, according to St.
Paul, Christ is the second Adam, Mary the second Eve.
Angelico avoided the drama seen in Masaccio’s Expulsion

THE HERITAGE OF MASACCIO: FRA ANGELICO AND FRA FILIPPO LIPPI * 225

(see fig. 8.13), and also the nudity, clothing Adam and Eve
in the coats of skins made for them by God (Genesis 3:21).

Fra Angelico was certainly aware of Masaccio’s method
of constructing forms and spaces, but he limits his
chiaroscuro as firmly as he does the emotion he allows his
figures to express. Their slender limbs are only just dis-
cernible under their garments and their bodies seem barely
corporeal. Their faces are drawn with simplicity and
purity, and they have exquisitely tended blond hair and
healthy rosy cheeks. The poised shapes, the subtle con-
tours, and the harmonies of space and light are enhanced
by the freshness of the colors. The angel, with wings seem-
ingly made of beaten gold, is dressed in a tunic of clear,
bright vermilion with bands of golden embroidery. Mary’s
blue mantle contrasts with the sparkling folds of the cloth-
of-honor that hangs behind her, as do the snowy columns
with the richly veined marble of the floor and the flowery
lawn. The world Fra Angelico creates is remote from
reality, a realm of unmarred celestial beauty.

In the predella scenes, however, the real world intrudes.
In the Visitation (fig. 9.3), looking past Mary and her
cousin, we see an old woman laboring up the hill toward
us. Beyond her spreads a broad landscape, its distance
enhanced by shadows of clouds. Mary “went into the hill
country with haste,” wrote Luke in his Gospel (1:39), and
St. Antoninus’s Summa stressed that this subject, which
marks the first recognition of the divinity of Christ — the
response of John the Baptist while he was still in the womb
of Elizabeth — should have a hilly background. The back-
ground elements are identifiable as the town of Castiglione
Fiorentino, the tower of Montecchi (still visible to travel-
ers between Florence and Rome), and the wide lake that

then filled the Chiana Valley below Cortona (see fig. 16.4).
This may well be the earliest recognizable representation of
a specific place in the Renaissance. Beyond the sun-
drenched town, the plain fuses with the sky in impercepti-
ble gradations of summer sunlight and dusty haze. The
spatial experience of landscape is realized more fully in this
tiny panel than in any previous Italian work.

In 1436, the neglected buildings of San Marco in Flo-
rence were taken from the religious order previously there
and presented to the Dominicans of Fiesole. Beginning in
1438, the Dominicans, supported by contributions from
Cosimo de’ Medici, commissioned Michelozzo di Bar-
tolommeo to build a new church and monastery on the site
(see fig. 6.27). Pope Eugenius IV was present at the conse-
cration of the church on January 6, 1443, under the new
prior, the future St. Antoninus. Fra Angelico painted the
high altarpiece, which was probably installed by 1440 (fig.
9.4). In this work the artist showed himself to be abreast
of the latest artistic developments.

The altarpiece has been dismembered and the original
frame lost; the reconstruction shown here represents an
effort to re-create some of the effect of the original. What
cannot be remedied is the fact that the principal panel has
been drastically overcleaned. Nevertheless, it is still an
impressive composition. Gold curtains, their loops contin-
ued across the top of the picture by festoons of pink and
white roses, seem to have just been parted to invite us to
view the court of heaven. At the center, where the perspec-
tive lines converge, the Virgin is enthroned in a Renais-
sance niche whose Corinthian order is so closely related to
Brunelleschi’s new style (and to Michelozzo’s adaptation of
that style at San Marco) that one of the architects may

9.3. FRA ANGELICO. Visitation y from
the predella of the Annunciation altarpiece
(fig. 9.1). c. 1434. Panel, approx. 9 x 15"
(23 x 38 cm). Museo Diocesano, Cortona.

2 2 6

THE QUATTROCENTO

9.4. FRA ANGELICO. Madonna and Saints (San Marco altarpiece). c. 1438-43. Conjectural reconstruction of the front and sides.

Digitized reconstruction by Lew Minter, after Boskov its -Brown. Central panel, 86 5 /8 x 89 3 /s" (2.2 x 2.27 m). Museum of S. Marco, Florence.
Commissioned by Cosimo de’ Medici for the high altar of S. Marco, Florence.

Because the frame of this altarpiece is lost, this illustration uses computerized photomontage in an attempt to re-create the effect of the original
altarpiece in a Quattrocento frame. With this frame in place, the illusionism of the gathered curtains to the sides and garland swags across the top
takes on a new effectiveness.

have shown Fra Angelico how such things should be
designed. The Christ Child, seated as the Divine Ruler,
holds a prominent orb painted with a world map with the
Holy Land at its center, marked by a gold star. Gold bro-
cades decorate the throne and create a wall over which one
looks into the next level of the illusion, an “enclosed
garden” of fruit trees, cedars and cypresses, palms and
roses. These choices are not merely decorative, for Christ
is the fruit of the Tree of Life, and Mary — according to
symbolism derived from the apocryphal Book of
Wisdom — is a cedar of Lebanon, a cypress on Zion, a palm
in Cades, and a rose tree in Jericho. The texts inscribed on
the Virgin’s mantle are: “I am the mother of beautiful love
... and of holy hope” and “Like a vine I caused loveliness
to bud, and my blossoms became glorious and abundant
fruit.” The garden in the background is both the represen-
tation and the symbol of these words. Angels and saints

gather in a semicircle on the steps of the throne and on an
Anatolian animal carpet that provides the converging
orthogonals of the perspective construction. The carpet
seems to be precisely rendered, but in fact its border fea-
tures the red palle, or balls, of the coat of arms of the
monastery’s patron, Cosimo de’ Medici; either this is an
interpolation on Angelico’s part, to honor his patron, or
the Medici had such a rug woven to their specifications.

In the foreground, the composition in space is continued
by the kneeling Medici patron saints, Cosmas and Damian,
and completed by what seems to be a small panel of the
Crucifixion, a picture within a picture. This illusionistic
device is based on the custom of placing an image of the
Crucifixion or the dead Christ on the altar while saying
Mass. When no such image appeared in the altarpiece, a
small panel like the one painted here would have to be
brought from the sacristy. In this case Fra Angelico’s

THE HERITAGE OF MASACCIO: FRA ANGELICO AND FRA FILIPPO LIPPI * ZZJ

illusion is clever, for it provides the required image
while adding another grace note to his highly developed
spatial composition.

The representation of a unified grouping of figures
within an integrated, continuous, illusionistic space as seen
here was new to Renaissance painting. Although we cannot
determine who the innovator was, there is no question that
Fra Angelico and his Medici patrons were in the forefront
of these developments. With its perspective construction,
lofty central arched throne, and pyramidal grouping of
figures within a circle in depth, the altarpiece establishes a
precedent that may have been an impetus for the many
other centralized, multifigural compositions created in
subsequent decades of the Quattrocento. The work’s influ-
ence may have been augmented by its Medici patronage,
which certainly added prestige to this innovative work.

The pictorial space, measured by systematic perspective
from the foreground plane to the horizon beyond the trees,
provides a location and the correct scale for each figure.
The space is projected by dividing the lower edge using the
squares in the carpet, then drawing orthogonals from these
segments to the vanishing point. One of the kneeling saints
turns and looks outward as he points with his right hand,
directing our attention to the center of the picture. The use
of these two devices — the perspective scheme and the agent
who invites us to contemplate the theme — corresponds, as
we shall see, to the doctrines of Leonbattista Alberti, who
had arrived in Florence a few years earlier and circulated
Della pittura , the Italian version of his treatise De pictura
(On Painting).

In the predella panels, featuring the legend of Sts.
Cosmas and Damian, Fra Angelico displayed his versatility
in handling both figures and the luminous and atmospheric
effects of the natural world. Dominican high altarpieces
rarely have predellas, and the inclusion here of this cycle,
instantly recognizable as Medicean, reveals the influence of
the patron in determining iconography, even in public reli-
gious works. At first sight, the interiors seem to be stan-
dard Trecento boxes. The Miracle of the Deacon Justinian
(fig. 9.5) shows the two saints floating on clouds as they
exchange the deacon’s gangrenous leg for a healthy one
amputated from a Moor. The space is illuminated naturally
by light coming in from the front left, so that a shadow is
cast across the right wall. A second source of light is the
tiny window on the left wall, through which light filters
onto the splayed embrasure. A third source is the light
reflected upward from the floor, and there is a fourth
source in the corridor visible through the open door. In the
interplay of the effects of light from four different sources
on walls, furniture, curtains, figures, and still life (note the
slippers, beaker, and carafe), and in the delicacy with
which light suffuses the shadows, Fra Angelico reveals his
subtle observation of natural effects.

Between the end of 1438 and late 1445, when he left for
Rome, Fra Angelico and his assistants — probably also
monks — provided paintings for the monastery of San
Marco’s chapter house, corridors, and overdoors, and for
forty-four monks’ cells (fig. 9.6). The painters were cer-
tainly under the direction of the prior, St. Antoninus, and
the style of their paintings for the monastic community

9.5. FRA ANGELICO. The
Miracle of the Deacon Justinian ,
from the predella of the S. Marco
altarpiece (fig. 9.4). c. 1438-43.
Panel, 14V2 x 18 3 /4" (37 x 48 cm).
Museum of S. Marco, Florence.

2 2 8

THE QUATTROCENTO

9.6. MICHELOZZO DI

BARTOLOMMEO. Plan of the second

floor of the Monastery of S. Marco,

Florence. 1442-44.

1. The Library, by Michelozzo (see fig.
6.27).

2. Location of fresco of the Annunciation
in the hallway, at the top of the entrance
stairs (see fig. 9.7).

3. Location of monk’s cell with fresco of
the Annunciation (see fig. 9.8).

4. Location of the double cell reserved for
Cosimo de’ Medici, with fresco of the
Procession and Adoration of the Magi
by the workshop of Fra Angelico.

5. Location of the double cell used by
Savonarola (see pp. 342-344) when he
was the prior of San Marco.

differs sharply from that of Angelico’s altarpieces intended
for public view. There is even a distinction between the
frescoes destined for the monastic community as a whole
and those in the cells — a reminder of how an artist and his
hottega could modify style and iconographic interpreta-
tions according to location and audience.

At the head of the staircase leading into the dormitory,
which every monk must have used several times a day, Fra
Angelico painted an Annunciation (fig. 9.7) with the
inscription, “As you venerate this figure of the intact Virgin
while passing before it, beware lest you omit to say a Hail
Mary.” Uncertain in date, the inscription nevertheless pro-
vides a hint of the role of images in the rituals of monastic
life. Another clue to monastic behavior can be seen in a
fresco of the Dominican saint Peter Martyr over the door
leading from the cloister to the adjoining church: the saint
has his finger raised in the traditional gesture of silence,
reminding the monks that, though they could speak in the
cloister, they had to fall silent upon entering the church.

Fra Angelico’s interest in natural light is evident in this
Annunciation , for when the monks ascended the staircase
to the upper floor, only after a turn in the staircase would
they see the painting, at a point where light floods in from
a large window to the left that conforms to the painted
light within the picture. As is appropriate for both the

fresco medium and the monastic setting, the bright colors
and gold of the Annunciation altarpiece (see fig. 9.1) are
here replaced by pale tints. The architecture is now seen
directly from the front, so that the lateral columns recede
toward the center of the composition, drawing the viewer’s
eye from left to right. The greater weight of the columns
and the care with which the capitals are rendered probably
reveal the painter’s interest in Michelozzo’s architecture,
then being constructed all about him. It is doubtful,
however, that an architect would have approved of using
Corinthian and Ionic capitals in the same portico.

The mood here is less immediate and more contempla-
tive than in the ecstatic Cortona Annunciation. Mary has
no book and she sits on a rough-hewn, three-legged
wooden stool. The fence around her “garden of the soul,”
as it was called by St. Antoninus, is higher and stronger.
Her chamber, stripped of furniture, opens onto the world
through a barred window, and one is reminded of St.
Antoninus’s admonition to sweep clean the room of the

THE HERITAGE OF MASACCIO: FRA ANGELICO AND FRA FILIPPO LIPPI * 229

9.7. FRA ANGELICO. Annunciation. 1438-45. Fresco, 7'1" x 10'6"
(2.2 x 3.2 m). Hallway, Monastery of S. Marco, Florence. Probably
commissioned by Cosimo de’ Medici.

mind and to distrust the eye, the window of the soul:
“Deadly sin comes in at the windows, if they are not closed
as they ought to be,” was his warning in discussing the
theme of the Annunciation. Angelico has made the
window the eye of his fresco, the vanishing point of his
perspective lines.

Each of the arched frescoes in the cells is about 6 feet
high and each seems to float on the wall under a curving
vault. Everything in these images is pure, clean, and dis-
embodied. The world seems to retreat, leaving the medita-
tive subject suspended before the cell’s occupant. The cell
version of the Annunciation (fig. 9.8) shows a standing
angel and a kneeling Virgin, slight and frail, who holds her
open book to her breast. The angel has entered with the
light, which falls on the Virgin. They are united by the
simple rhythms of the plain architecture, which is arched
like the cell it adorns. There is no garden, and outside the
arcade St. Peter Martyr meditates on the event. He is
included ahistorically as an example for the cell’s resident

monk who, under the hypnotic influence of the luminous
colors, clear shapes, harmonious spaces, and simple com-
position, is expected to experience mystically the miracle
of the Incarnation.

Through their austere colors and simplified shapes, the
cell frescoes suggest that no worldly concerns should
trouble the spirit. In each painting, however, Fra Angelico
and his assistants also probed the sensibilities of the indi-
vidual observer, as Donatello had done in his sculpture (see
figs. 7.12, 7.17). In these frescoes the observer is the center,
as is also the effect in works that demonstrate the Renais-
sance perspective system. In this sense these paintings are
fully Renaissance works.

9.8. FRA ANGELICO. Annunciation. 1438-45. Fresco, 6'1 V 2 " x
5'2" (1.87 x 1.58 m). Monk’s cell, Monastery of S. Marco, Florence.
Probably commissioned by Cosimo de’ Medici.

23O

THE QUATTROCENTO

Fra Filippo Lippi

Filippo Lippi was born about 1406 into the large family of
an impoverished butcher in the poor neighborhood near
the monastery of the Carmine in Florence. Together with a
brother, he entered the monastery at an early age and took
his vows in 1421. Giorgio Vasari reported that Filippo
decided to become a painter while watching Masaccio at
work in the Brancacci Chapel. The mistake of Filippo
becoming a monk was compounded by his appointment to
the chaplaincy of a convent in Prato where, according to
Vasari, a young nun named Lucrezia Buti drew his atten-
tion while he was saying Mass. We know from an anony-
mous denunciation, made to the Office of the Monasteries
and of the Night, that from 1456 to 1458 Lucrezia, her
sister Spinetta, and five other nuns were living in Filippo’s
house. During this period a son, who became the painter
Filippino Lippi (see figs. 13.31, 13.33-13.34), was born to
Lucrezia; later a daughter was born. There was more
trouble: patrons claimed that Filippo did not fulfill his
contracts, for example, and an assistant claimed he was
not paid. At one point, Filippo found himself in difficulty
with the authorities and was tried and tortured on the
rack. It is said that Cosimo de’ Medici persuaded Pope Pius
II to release Filippo and Lucrezia from their vows. They
allegedly married and their children were legitimized.

Filippo’s earliest dated painting, a Madonna and Child
(fig. 9.9), shows the influence of Masaccio in the heavy
features of the Madonna, the simplicity of the domestic
interior, and the heavy shadows. Only the marble throne
and pearl diadem seem out of place. The absence of a halo
for either of the sacred figures represents a move toward
the greater naturalism that will become common later in
the Quattrocento. A closer look, however, reveals that
Filippo is not interested in the consistency characteristic of
Masaccio’s style. The heavy drapery is lit erratically, and
the interior space seems throttled around the center,
although perhaps this effect is the result of the panel
having been reduced in size sometime in the past. Filippo’s
attempt to suggest natural gestures and attitudes seems
somewhat forced. The most striking feature of the style,
however, is the reappearance of contour. Apparently,
Masaccio’s chiaroscuro did not seem sufficient to Filippo,
for around every form he has added hard, drawn edges.
The result, less pictorial than sculptural, may indicate
Filippo’s careful study of figures by Donatello, Nanni,
and others.

In his Annunciation (fig. 9.10), Filippo established a
deep perspective into a monastery garden, at once the
garden of the Temple of Solomon (with which Mary was
connected) and the symbolic closed garden of the Song of
Songs. Mary’s agitated pose is probably derived from

9.9. FRA FILIPPO LIPPI. Madonna and Child (Tarquinia
Madonna). 1437. Panel, 45 x 25 V2 1 ' (114 x 65 cm) (cut down at the
sides and bottom). National Gallery, Rome, on display at Palazzo
Barberini. Perhaps commissioned by Giovanni Vitelleschi,
Archbishop of Florence, for his palace in Cometo Tarquinia.

Donatello’s slightly earlier Annunciation (see fig. 10.21),
but the mood of the picture has little to do with that mon-
ument to classicism.

The two curly-haired, puffy-faced angels to the left may
function as witnesses to this moment of Christ’s Incar-
nation. One looks downward; the other gazes out at the
observer and points to the Annunciation, leading our eye
into the painting — a device recommended by Alberti and
already mentioned in our discussion of the works of Fra
Angelico. The tones of the drapery of the foreground
figures contrast surprisingly with the brilliant orange

2 3 2

THE QUATTROCENTO

building at the end of the garden. Note the glass vase in the
foreground, from which Gabriel has apparently just
plucked the lily he holds. Filippo has even painted a niche
to suggest that the vase rests on the frame — or perhaps on
the altar itself — thereby uniting the real space of the chapel
with the illusory space of the picture. With its shining
water and soft shadow, the vase contrasts with the expanse
of the softly painted garden, with its flowers, trees, arbor,
and blue sky beyond. It is the kind of effect one would
expect from a Netherlandish rather than an Italian artist,
and it may indicate Filippo’s awareness of artistic develop-
ments north of the Alps.

There must have been a good reason for the unorthodox
composition of this Annunciation , with the main scene
moved into one half so that the rest could be given over to

two additional angels not mentioned in biblical accounts
of this event. These angels are somewhat distracting, for
they look like neighborhood youngsters dressed up with
wings, as we know happened at festival occasions. Each
year at the Carmine, for example, Filippo could have wit-
nessed a re-enactment of the Ascension of Christ in which
the actor who played Christ sailed up through a hole cut in
the ceiling in front of the Brancacci Chapel. The Church of
San Felice put on a similar annual show, choreographed by
Brunelleschi, that dramatized the Annunciation. The angel
Gabriel, lowered in a copper mandorla into the midst of
the church, moved across a stage in front of the altar and
delivered the salutation to Mary, who was waiting in her
little habitation. After listening to her reply, he ascended
into a blue dome lined with lighted lamps to represent stars

9.10. FRA FILIPPO LIPPI. Annunciation, c. 1440. Panel, 5'9" x 6' (1.75 x 1.83 m). m S. Lorenzo, Florence. Probably
commissioned by a member of the Martelli family for their family chapel in San Lorenzo.

Physical evidence and the unusual composition, with the scene of the Annunciation squeezed into one-half of the available
space, suggest that the work may have been created as two hinged panels, to function as a kind of diptych.

THE HERITAGE OF MASACCIO: FRA ANGELICO AND FRA FILIPPO LIPPI * 2 33

9.11. FRA FILIPPO LIPPI. Madonna and Child with the Birth of the Virgin and the Meeting of Joachim and
Anna . 1452. Panel, diameter 53" (1.35 m). Pitti Gallery, Florence. Commissioned by Lionardo Bartolini, an
important banker and statesman. The frame is original.

and with child-angels standing on clouds of carded wool
and held in by iron bars so that they could not fall “even
if they wanted to,” according to Vasari. The flavor of these
popular festivals seems to animate Filippo’s paintings.

Filippo’s delightful tondo (circular picture) of the
Madonna and Child with the Birth of the Virgin and the
Meeting of Joachim and Anna was painted in 1452 for a
prosperous merchant (fig. 9.11). The tondo is derived in
part from the Florentine tradition of painted round trays
presented to women as marriage gifts or when they gave
birth to a male child (for an earlier example, see fig. 12.3).

On the staircase at the upper right St. Anne, mother of
the Virgin, receives the returning Joachim, perhaps a refer-
ence to the kiss that, some theologians argued, marked the
moment the Virgin was conceived (see fig. 3.7). Then, on
the left, the birth of the Virgin is depicted as if it were
taking place in the Renaissance house of a well-to-do
Florentine family, attended by maidservants carrying gifts.
The next generation appears in the central Virgin and
Child, who are placed at the focal point of the perspective,

which means that they are off-center in the composition
within the tondo. The Virgin, who looks shyly out at the
observer, was drawn from the same model as other
Madonnas by Lippi. The Christ Child holds a pomegran-
ate and is about to pop a seed into his mouth; like Masac-
cio’s grapes (see figs. 8.5, 8.17), this naturalistic motif has
a religious meaning, for the pomegranate’s many seeds
made it a symbol of the Resurrection.

Filippo’s interest in creating a complex spatial setting is
evident in the planes of the walls, the inlaid marble squares
of the floor, the coffered ceilings, and the steps of varying
breadth and pitch. The new elegance of mid-Quattrocento
taste is seen in the delicacy of the figures and the refine-
ment of costume, especially the Madonna’s headdress,
with its artfully pleated design. Her blonde hair is combed
tightly back. During the Renaissance, a high forehead was
considered to be especially beautiful; it could be achieved,
if necessary, by plucking or shaving. Filippo’s enthusiasm
for beautiful young women, healthy babies, tasteful gar-
ments, and elegant furnishings is well demonstrated in this

2 3 4

THE QUATTROCENTO

image. Masaccio’s chiaroscuro has vanished and the
figures are illuminated by a soft, allover glow without
harsh shadows. As a result, the sense of mass evident in
Filippo’s earlier works is somewhat reduced.

Fra Filippo’s frescoes in the chancel of Prato Cathedral
(fig. 9.12), begun in 1452, were executed over a period of
time. The date of 1460 is found on one fresco, but the cycle

was still incomplete in 1464, when officials complained to
Carlo de’ Medici that Filippo had not finished the job, and
even in 1466, when the painter left for Spoleto. Some of
the work was done from Filippo’s designs by his pupil, Fra
Diamante, but everywhere the cycle overflows with details
that show the human sweetness and warmth characteristic
of Filippo’s art.

9.12. FRA FILIPPO LIPPI. Fresco cycle with scenes from the legends of Sts. Stephen and John the Baptist. Cathedral of Prato. 1452/3-66.

The vault frescoes represent the four Evangelists. The stained-glass window, with standing saints and the Assumption of the Virgin , was executed
by Ser Lorenzo da Pelago, probably on designs by Lippi. Commissioned by the commune of Prato.

THE HERITAGE OF MASACCIO: FRA ANGELICO AND FRA FILIPPO LIPPI * 2 35

The Feast of Herod (fig. 9.13) is a work of great origi-
nality. A garden courtyard, floored with inlaid marble in a
strong perspective pattern, is the setting for the impressive
celebration. The perspective lines shoot inward, past the
central figure of Herod, who is seated directly below the
coat of arms of the patron, to windows opening onto a
landscape. On this stage the action moves in three
episodes. At the left, cut off from the festivities by a gigan-
tic, armed guard, Salome receives on a platter the head of
St. John the Baptist, from which she looks away. The
decapitation itself is painted on the adjoining wall, and the
executioner has to reach around the corner to place the
head on the platter; his elbow, bent at 90 degrees, con-
forms to the angle at which the walls meet (fig. 9.14). In
the center Salome does her dance, poised on her left foot,
while her right foot, hand, and assorted ribbons fly in the
air. This figure is the ancestor, so to speak, of the figures in
motion painted by Fra Filippo’s pupil Sandro Botticelli (see
fig. 13.23). At the right Salome kneels, still not looking at
the head she presents to Herodias, while at the extreme
right two servants clutch each other as one surreptitiously
captures a glimpse of the grisly trophy.

Fra Filippo was chosen by the Medici to paint a series of
penitential pictures in the late 1450s. In 1448 the plague
struck again, and it returned annually for three summers.

Thousands of Florentines succumbed, and the pilgrims
passing through Tuscany on their way to the papal jubilee
of 1450 in Rome carried the plague with them and died
miserably in the streets there. St. Antoninus, at this time
archbishop of Florence, may well have been responsible for
the content of two similar works painted by Fra Filippo
for Lucrezia Tornabuoni, wife of Piero de’ Medici: one was
for her penitential cell at the monastery of Camaldoli in
the Apennines and the other for the altar of the chapel
in the Medici Palace (fig. 9.15). St. Antoninus originally
composed his moral treatise “on the art of living well” for
Lucrezia’s sister; a copy written in his own hand
for Lucrezia survives.

In Filippo’s painting for the Medici Palace, the Virgin
kneels and adores the naked Christ Child, following, in
part, the description by St. Bridget of Sweden of her vision
of the Nativity (see p. 148), suggesting that Filippo’s image
refers to the moment of the Nativity even when such
iconographic details as the cave, shed, Joseph, angels, ox,
or ass are missing. God the Father and the dove of the
Holy Spirit join the Christ Child in forming the Trinity.
Nearby stands St. John the Baptist as a boy of five or six,
although, according to tradition, he was only six months
older than his cousin Jesus. The setting is the middle of a
forest in which many felled trees can be seen. In the lower

236

THE QUATTROCENTO

left-hand corner an ax wedged into a tree trunk bears the
words “Frater Philippus P” (for pinxit , meaning painted)
on its handle. This is a penitential image derived from the
Baptist’s own words: “And now also the axe is laid unto
the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth
not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire”
(Matthew 3:10).

Since the painting seems to date to about the time of the
Lucrezia Buti scandal, Filippo’s signature on the ax handle
may record his penance. But logging was also an essential
daily activity of the monks at Camaldoli, who lived a rig-
orous existence in clearings they made in the forest. Each
monk resided in a separate hut, celebrating solitary Mass
and living on what he could raise in his garden plot. Taking
the Camaldolites as his theme, St. Antoninus recommended
to penitents a life of religious meditation in what he called
“the little garden of the soul,” very like the garden plot in

9.14. FRA FILIPPO LIPPI. The Head of St John the Baptist
Handed to Salome . 1452/3-66. Fresco. Cathedral, Prato, detail
of the Feast of Herod (see fig. 9.13).

which we see Mary kneeling to adore Christ. First one
should cut down the trees, he wrote, then uproot the
stumps and brambles, then fence in the garden and appoint
a guardian for the gate, and only then will the flowers of a
good life spring. He also admired St. John the Baptist — the
last of the prophets and the first of the martyrs — who went
into the wilderness before the age of seven. St. Antoninus
claimed that the true penitent will identify with the Virgin,
and that through creating the “garden of the soul,” the
Christ Child can be born again in one’s heart.

Filippo’s painting is replete with St. Antoninus’s dictums.
Around Christ, flowers spring up to form a garden pro-
tected by saints, while felled and uprooted trees fill the
background. Fire comes down from heaven — the fire of the
Holy Spirit, with which St. John said Christ would baptize
(Matthew 3:11). In the deep blue-green gloom of the
forest, Mary and the praying saint — Romuald, founder of
the Camaldolite Order — adore Christ.

At this same time, other painters were exploring Masac-
cio’s style and investigating new aspects of the natural
world, as we shall see in Chapter 11.

9.15. FRA FILIPPO LIPPI. The Adoration of the Infant Jesus. Late
1450s. Panel, 50 x 45 5 /s" (1.27 x 1.16 m). Gemaldegalerie, Berlin.
Commissioned by a member of the Medici family (Cosimo or Piero
de’ Medici or perhaps Lucrezia Tornabuoni) for the chapel in the
Medici Palace (see fig. 6.22), where an early copy is now on the altar.

THE HERITAGE OF MASACCIO: FRA ANGELICO AND FRA FILIPPO LIPPI • 2*37

■ ■

FLORENTINE ARCHITECTURE AND

S C U L

T he new stylistic concerns of the mid-
Quattrocento are rooted in the life, thought,
and artistic activity of the humanist Leonbat-
tista Alberti (1404-1472), whose importance
and influence for Renaissance art, already
mentioned in preceding chapters, can hardly be exagger-
ated. Alberti’s theories on architecture, sculpture, and
painting made a lasting impact on each of these disciplines.

Alberti

Latin was still almost exclusively the language of intellec-
tual discourse, and Alberti authored works in Latin that
ranged from poems and comedies to treatises on law, the
horse, the family, and the tranquillity of the soul. In 1435
he circulated in manuscript form De pictura (On Painting ),
following in 1436 with Della pittura , an abridged and less
erudite version in Italian. Alberti’s De re aedificatoria libri
X (Ten Books on Architecture) , written before 1450, were
the Renaissance counterpart to the only ancient treatise on
architecture to survive, De architectural by the ancient
Roman architect and engineer Vitruvius. Alberti probably
wrote De statua (On the Statue) in the 1450s. His writings
express the doctrine that “virtus” was the most important
quality to be sought in human life. By this he meant not
'"virtue” in the Christian sense, but a combination of ideal
human traits: intelligence, reason, knowledge, control,
balance, perception, harmony, and dignity. The last five

PTURE, c. 1430-55

traits listed could also be used to describe much of Early
Renaissance art and architecture.

Alberti, like the other Florentine humanists, was a
member of an important Florentine family, but the Alberti
family had been expelled in 1402 and Leonbattista was
born in exile in 1404. He received a humanistic education
at the University of Bologna, where he took his doctorate
in canon law at the age of twenty-four and became
acquainted with the humanist scholar Tommaso Parentu-
celli, who later became Pope Nicholas V. He derived no
steady income from family sources and was thus depend-
ent on stipends from patrons, who included both secular
and ecclesiastical princes — the Este of Ferrara, the Mala-
testa of Rimini, the Gonzaga of Mantua, several cardinals,
and at least two popes, as well as the Florentine merchant
prince Giovanni Rucellai. As a young man Alberti traveled
widely in Germany and the Low Countries, eventually
became a writer of papal briefs, and for more than thirty
years enjoyed the revenue (benefice) of the Church of San
Martino a Gangalandi in the Arno Valley. He seems to
have made up for his habitual absence from San Martino
by a bequest to build a handsome Renaissance apse, appar-
ently of his own design. Alberti’s role at the courts of his
princely patrons was that of adviser, and his artistic influ-
ence, especially in the realm of architecture and city plan-
ning, extended far beyond the buildings he designed.

Alberti first came to Florence in 1434, the year of Cosimo
de’ Medici’s return from exile. But, in his own words, he

Opposite: 10.1. LORENZO GHIBERTI. Gates of Paradise, East Doors for Baptistery, Florence (now removed). 1425— 52. Gilded bronze,
height approx. 15' (4.6 m). Museo delPOpera del Duomo, Florence. Commissioned by the Opera of the Baptistery and the Arte di Calimala for
the Florentine Baptistery.

The outer frame, by Lorenzo and Vittorio Ghiberti and the Ghiberti workshop, has been dated c. 1448-52. This historic photograph shows the
doors when they were still installed on the Baptistery; today they have been replaced with copies.

FLORENTINE ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE, c. 1 4 3 0 - 5 5 * 239

“went to Florence seldom and remained there little.” Neither
of his two architectural creations there were directly imi-
tated by Florentine patrons or architects, although his
architectural ideas had an enormous effect both in Flo-
rence and in other Italian centers, and the Roman High
Renaissance is inconceivable without his innovations. His
notions about the construction and organization of picto-

rial space and the compositional and narrative methods
that painters should follow help explain the developments
already observed in the works of Fra Angelico and Fra
Filippo Lippi. Such ideas also clarify certain aspects of
works in sculpture by Lorenzo Ghiberti and Donatello,
and in painting by Paolo Uccello, Domenico Veneziano,
Andrea del Castagno, and Piero della Francesca.

Left: 10.2. LEONBATTISTA
ALBERTI. Self-Portrait, c. 1435.
Bronze, height 8" (20.1 cm; shown
actual size). National Gallery of
Art, Washington, D.C.

The winged eye to the left is
Alberti’s emblem. The L. BAP. to
the right, which is framed by two
smaller eyes, refers to his name
and perhaps also functions as
a signature.

Above: 10.3. LEONBATTISTA
ALBERTI. Malatesta Temple
(S. Francesco), Rimini, design for
exterior, on a bronze medal after
MATTEO DE’ PASTI. 1450.
Diameter IV 2 1 ' (4 cm; shown actual
size). National Gallery of Art,
Washington, D.C. (Kress
Collection). Commissioned
by Sigismondo Malatesta.

24O

THE QUATTROCENTO

It was apparently during his time in Florence that Alberti
executed a large self-portrait medal in bronze (fig. 10.2).
He shows himself in strict profile, wearing a classical cloak,
as indicated by the knot, and with a severe haircut based
on classical models. Alberti was clearly in the vanguard of
artistic developments, for this is the earliest known Renais-
sance portrait medal and the first independent self-portrait
by a Renaissance artist, as well as the first to show the
artist dressed in the antique style. Alberti’s models were
clearly ancient Roman coins, but in making the leap from
a historic coin to a larger personal commemoration, he
provided an early demonstration of the new way in which
the individual would be understood in the Renaissance.

THE MALATESTA TEMPLE. At mid-century,
Alberti was given an opportunity to put his classical ideas
into visible form in an ambitious structure that, although
unfinished, is known today through a medal and an
elegant fragment (figs. 10.3-10.4). The Adriatic city of
Rimini was at that time under the rule of the erudite but
unscrupulous tyrant Sigismondo Malatesta — the only
person in history publicly consigned to hell by the pope
while he was still alive; the ceremony was performed by
Pope Pius II in front of St. Peter’s.

One of Sigismondo’s offenses was the conversion of the
church of San Francesco at Rimini into a sort of temple to
himself and his mistress, Isotta degli Atti. The desecration

had started unobtrusively. In the original Gothic church,
funerary chapels were erected for Sigismondo and Isotta,
and the architect Matteo de’ Pasti was commissioned to
clothe the arches of the interior in Renaissance dress. At
the jubilee of Pope Nicholas V in Rome in 1450, Sigis-
mondo seems to have made the acquaintance of Alberti,
who was advising the pope on redesigning the papal city.
For Sigismondo, Alberti created a design that would
enclose and conceal the work of de’ Pasti, which Alberti
criticized in a letter dated 1454.

The medal struck for the laying of the cornerstone in
1450 shows a facade with three arches below and a central
arch above. The medal and a number of buildings in
Venice and Dalmatia that reflect Alberti’s design suggest
that the sloping roofs to the sides were to have been half-
arches. These and the central upper arches were external
reflections of a wooden barrel vault to be built over the
nave and wooden half-barrel vaults over the side aisles.
These vaults were to have been decorated to look like
stone to confer an effect of simple grandeur onto a struc-
ture cluttered by Matteo’s revetment. Alberti demolished
the Gothic sanctuary to make way for the crowning feature
of the building: the never-constructed dome seen in the
medal. Alberti’s own words support conjecture about the
dome, which the medal shows as a huge hemisphere, as
wide as the church and raised above a cylindrical drum.
Although Alberti admired Brunelleschi’s dome for the

10.4. LEONBATTISTA ALBERTI. Malatesta Temple (S. Francesco), Rimini, exterior. Designed 1450; construction begun 1450 or 1453.
Istrian stone, with details in colored marble. Commissioned by Sigismondo Malatesta.

FLORENTINE ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE, c. 1 4 3 0- 5 5 * 24 I

Cathedral of Florence (see fig. 6.7), he insisted that its pro-
portions were incorrect because they did not correspond to
the pure geometry demonstrated in the design of the Pan-
theon (see fig. 1.2), which seems to be imitated here.

Only the exterior of Alberti’s plan was brought any-
where near completion, and the elegance of the lower story
of the facade makes one regret that the upper story was
never completed. The triple arch below was based on
Rimini’s ancient Roman Arch of Augustus, which is only a
few hundred yards away. The arches on the side elevations
frame sarcophagi intended for the humanists of Sigis-
mondo’s court. Note that the arches of the facade and
sides are supported by piers, not, as in a Brunelleschian
building, columns.

Alberti defined beauty as “the harmony and concord of
all the parts, achieved in such a manner that nothing could
be added, taken away, or altered,” and emphasized that
the proportions of all the members and spaces were to be
based on mathematics, as in Milan Cathedral (see p. 154)
and the works of Brunelleschi (see p. 165). In response to
questions about the relationship of the various parts of the
temple, Alberti wrote that if “the measurements and the
proportions of the piers” were altered it would “make a
discord in all that music” — a reference that reminds us of
the traditional relationship between mathematics, architec-
ture, and music mentioned earlier (see p. 169).

Because arches were openings in a wall, Alberti empha-
sized, they should be supported by sections of the wall,
while columns belong not to beauty as defined above, but
to decoration and therefore should be treated as applied
elements, not supporting members. The resultant emphasis
on the block of the building itself is alien to Brunelleschi’s
more linear, planar architecture and his use of columns to
support arcades both inside and out (see figs. 6.13,
6.17-6.18), revealing a fundamental change in the concep-
tion of a Renaissance structure. The effect of massive
grandeur conveyed by the structure is enhanced by the
arches, cornices, triumphal wreaths (enclosing slices of
porphyry columns taken from the sixth-century church of
Sant’Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna), and capitals. At first
glance the capitals seem to be ancient Roman in derivation,
but they were designed by Alberti, who combined ancient
decorative motifs such as volutes, egg-and-dart moldings,
acanthus leaves, and winged cherub heads. Matteo de’
Pasti described Alberti’s extraordinary designs for the cap-
itals as “bellissimi” (“most beautiful”), suggesting that in
his mind they fulfilled Alberti’s definition of beauty.

THE PALAZZO RUCELLAI. A strikingly original
contribution to the history of Renaissance palace design
was the facade of the Palazzo Rucellai in Florence (fig.
10.5), which Giorgio Vasari attributed to Alberti. The

palace belonged to an immensely wealthy Florentine mer-
chant, Giovanni Rucellai, who wrote in his notebook that
men have two roles in life: to procreate and to build. The
classical design of Palazzo Rucellai, built about 1142-50,
may be taken as a response to the Palazzo Medici (see figs.
6.22-6.26), started less than a decade earlier. The basic ele-
ments are similar: a rusticated three-story building with an
entrance portal and high, square windows on the ground
floor; mullioned windows on the second and third; and a
massive cornice. But in the Palazzo Rucellai these features
have been absorbed into a new proportional system. The
three stories are of equal height, and the rustication, con-
sisting of smooth “pseudoblocks” of stone (the real joints
do not always correspond to the apparent ones), is identi-
cal in all three stories. Applied to this base is a grid of
pilasters and entablatures, an idea apparently inspired by
the Colosseum in Rome (see fig. 1.3) and intended to
convey the humanist erudition of architect and patron.

The details are articulated with elegance. Alberti main-
tained that those who knew well the grammar of ancient
architecture could devise personal vocabularies. According
to ancient Roman practice, Ionic was placed above Doric
or Tuscan, and Corinthian above Ionic; thus the ground
story of the Palazzo Rucellai is Tuscan and the third
Corinthian. But the second story displays graceful capitals
of Alberti’s invention, composed of acanthus leaves
grouped about a central palmette — a fitting intermediate
stage between Tuscan and Corinthian. Further decoration
includes the portal cornices and the friezes containing
Rucellai family symbols, including the elegant motif of a
billowing sail, itself perhaps designed by Alberti.

The brilliant originality of this design supports Vasari’s
statement that the facade was designed by Alberti — an
attribution sustained by at least two other sources. But
other early sources mention a “model” of the building
made by the architect and sculptor Bernardo Rossellino
(see pp. 247, 260-1), and some later scholars have con-
tended that he, not Alberti, designed and built the facade.
Giovanni Rucellai, writing about 1464, states that the
palace is his chief achievement in building but, typically for
this period, identifies neither architect nor builder. Neither
does the sculptor and architect Filarete (see pp. 433-34),
who was in Florence in 1461 and described the facade of
the Palazzo Rucellai as “all made in the antique style.”

One possible solution is that Alberti created a design of
only five bays, starting from the left. A five-bay facade would
correspond with the design principles stated by Alberti in
De re aedificatoria , where he recommended that, as a
reflection of the natural bodies of humans and animals, a
building should be centralized and have an even number of
supports, combined with an odd number of openings — an
idea based on the eyes, ears, nostrils, and mouth of the head.

242

THE QUATTROCENTO

10.5. LEONBATTISTA ALBERTI (attributed to). Palazzo Rucellai, Florence, facade (left five bays only), c. 1452-58. Pietra serena. Probably
extended later by BERNARDO ROSSELLINO. Commissioned by Giovanni Rucellai.

In Giovanni Rucellai ’s memoirs of 1473, he wrote: “Through God’s grace, I have been very fortunate in the businesses of trading and banking.

I was resourceful and competent, and I started working when I was still a lad.... From my work I gained a great reputation and a great deal of
trust, and in my heyday I established many banking companies in Florence ... and branches outside Florence. I also at several times became
involved with seven wood workshops as a business partner with several others. From these trades I have earned huge sums, and with the earnings
I have supported vast expenditure, above all the taxes of the commune, for which I calculate that I have paid 60,000 florins up to the present day.
I have also provided for the dowries of five of my married daughters, and this cost me 10,000 florins.” After mentioning his expenditure for
Palazzo Rucellai, the fagade of Sta. Maria Novella, and other works, he concludes: “All of the above gave me and still give me the greatest
satisfaction and pleasure, since in part they serve the honor of God as well as the honor of the city and the commemoration of myself. It is
generally said (and it is true) that earning and spending are among the greatest pleasures given to men in this world, and it is difficult to say
which one gives greater pleasure. Since in the last fifty years I have not done anything but earn and spend, which, as I said above, gave me great
satisfaction and pleasure, it is my opinion that there is more happiness in spending than in earning.”

FLORENTINE ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE, c. 1 4 3 0-5 5 * 2 4 3

It follows that a five-bay design should have six pilasters
combined with four windows and a central doorway. In
fact, documents indicate that just such a five-bay facade
was built, starting about 1455 and completed in 1458.
Later, as Giovanni Rucellai acquired more land, the sixth
and seventh bays were added; the eighth remains fragmen-
tary because the owner of the next house refused to sell.
Moreover, the carving in the sixth and seventh bays is not
of the same high quality as that in the first five. Perhaps
Giovanni Rucellai called in Bernardo to extend his palace.
In any case, scholars now generally give Alberti credit for
the highly original and influential design of the palazzo. Its
general principles were followed in many other buildings,
some actually built, others merely designed (see fig. 14.30).

SANTA MARIA NOVELLA. Alberti also furnished
the designs for other projects commissioned by Giovanni
Rucellai, including the facade for the church of Santa
Maria Novella (fig. 10.6), which has little in common with
the Trecento church that it fronts (see fig. 2.34). The white-
and-green marble structure is the only Florentine church
facade on a grand scale to be built during the Renaissance.
In its design Alberti followed the classicizing facade of San

Miniato al Monte, a Romanesque church overlooking
Florence, and divided the structure into an arcaded lower
story surmounted by a temple design with pilasters
crowned by a pediment. It is here that we see the name of
the patron in huge Roman capitals and the Rucellai bil-
lowing sail is repeated at various points on the facade.
Between the two stories Alberti inserted a mezzanine that
serves as an attic for one floor and a base for the other. He
framed the second-story temple on either side with large
volutes, an ingenious solution to a problem that had per-
plexed designers of basilica facades for a millennium: how
to unite a narrow upper story with a wider lower story and
at the same time mask the sloping roofs that connected the
two. In France and England the roofs were hidden behind
towers; in medieval Italy, massive screens were commonly
used. But Alberti’s volutes make a virtue of necessity by
hiding the straight slopes of the roof lines behind elegant
double curves.

Alberti’s solution is so successful that it is easy to over-
look the problems he faced in creating a Renaissance facade
for a centuries-old Gothic structure. When he received the
commission, he apparently had to retain Gothic elements
that were already completed: the two side portals, the six

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10.6. LEONBATTISTA ALBERTI. Facade, Sta. Maria Novella, Florence, c. 1461-70. White marble from Carrara, green marble from Prato.
Completion of the facade commissioned by Giovanni Rucellai.

244

THE QUATTROCENTO

tomb niches, and the placement of the tondo window.
At first the problem of creating a classicizing facade that
could incorporate these elements must have seemed insur-
mountable. But Alberti enclosed the niches within a round-
arched blind arcade, repeating their horizontal
green-and-white banding in the pilasters on both levels,
and ignored the tondo window by enclosing it within the
upper temple facade — further proof of his ability to impose
“harmony and concord” within a difficult situation.

SANT’ AND RE A, MANTUA. The most surprising
of Alberti’s innovations as a church architect are found in
his design for Sant’Andrea at Mantua (figs. 10.7-10.9), even
though it was built after his death and the current dome,
added in the eighteenth century, has nothing to do with his
intentions. Alberti’s innovations at Sant’Andrea are, in part,
based on his criticism of the use of the ancient Roman
basilican plan for church architecture. The three-aisled plan
of the Roman law court adopted for Early Christian churches
remained standard for church design throughout the Middle
Ages and into the Renaissance, as is evident in almost
every church plan previously illustrated (see figs. 6.14,
6.19). But Alberti maintained that the three-aisled plan
was unsuited for the worship of “the gods” (he never used
the word “God,” and in his writings one always reads the
word “temple,” and never “church”), because the columns
that divide the nave from the side aisles could conceal the
ceremonies at the altar for those standing in the aisles. This
idealistic approach ignored the relationship between the

rows of columns that divided the nave from the aisles and
the procession toward the altar that was such a part of the
developed liturgy. So, eleven hundred years of Christian
architectural history were summarily dismissed.

Sant’Andrea was commissioned by Ludovico Gonzaga,
marquis of Mantua (see figs. 15.24-15.25), in order to
exhibit to pilgrims a relic of Christ’s blood that St. Longi-
nus was supposed to have brought to Mantua. In fact, at
least nine major churches in Italy owe their existence to the
wave of popular religiosity that, in the late Quattrocento
and early Cinquecento, took the form of the adoration
of relics; five are covered in this book (see also figs.
12.21-12.23, 14.11-14.13, 17.16, 18.1 and 18.54-18.55),
and none utilized the basilican plan, perhaps because a
more unified plan could focus attention on the central role
of the relic at each site.

For Sant’Andrea, Alberti’s plan (fig. 10.8) was probably
based on the barrel-vaulted chambers of the ancient
Roman temple dedicated to Venus and Rome near the

M-H 1 1

0 10 20 METERS

1 1 ' 1

Above : 10.8. LEONBATTISTA ALBERTI. Plan of
Sant’Andrea, Mantua, as built.

Left: 10.7. LEONBATTISTA ALBERTI. Sant’Andrea, Mantua.
Designed 1470. Marble. Commissioned by Ludovico Gonzaga.

Of all Alberti’s buildings, perhaps Sant’Andrea best fulfills his
statement on the desirable balance between decoration and structure:
“One thing above all which a temple should have, in my opinion, is
that all its visible qualities should be of such a kind that it is difficult
to judge whether ... they contribute more to its grace and aptness or
to its stability.”

FLORENTINE ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE, c. 1 4 3 0 - 5 5 • 245

10.9. LEONBATTISTA ALBERTI. Nave, Sant’ Andrea, Mantua. Designed 1470.

Colosseum. The gigantic barrel vault of Sant’ Andrea (fig.
10.9) produces a unified spatial effect concentrating on the
high altar. Nothing hides the ceremony. The lateral arches
open into chapels, each itself crowned with a barrel vault.
The single-aisle plan is matched by a single-story elevation,
for the barrel vault rests directly, without clerestory, on the
nave entablature, which is itself supported by pilasters on
tall bases that frame the arched entrances to each of the
side chapels. The harmony so important for Alberti is
evident when we realize that Sant’ Andrea’s facade uses this
same motif of barrel-vaulted opening framed by pairs of
pilasters on high bases, integrating exterior and interior.
That the motif is based on the design of ancient Roman
triumphal arches, such as the Arch of Titus near the
Roman Forum, reveals Alberti’s continuing indebtedness
to ancient Rome. For illumination Alberti depended on the

dome, the huge oculus of the facade, and the smaller oculi
in the chapels, each showing only the sky, wherein dwell
“the gods.”

Alberti’s barrel-vaulted church interior influenced later
developments throughout Europe, from Donato Bramante
to Michelangelo and beyond to churches of the Baroque
(see figs. 17.10-17.15, 20.9-20.11, 20.53-20.55).

ARCHITECTURE AFTER ALBERTI. The influ-
ence of Alberti’s ideas was felt all over Italy. Pope Nicholas
V’s plans for a new papal Rome, centered for the first time
on St. Peter’s and the Vatican, were developed by Alberti.
Several buildings in the city are indebted to his innovations
and create a link between Alberti and the Rome of the
High Renaissance and even the Baroque. In the sphere of
urban planning, the influence of Alberti’s ideas expounded

246

THE QUATTROCENTO

in De re aedificatoria is evident in Pius IPs conversion of
his native village of Corsignano into the papal city of
Pienza (figs. 10.10-10.11). This project was carried out by
Bernardo Rossellino, who had commenced the reconstruc-
tion of St. Peter’s in Rome under Pope Nicholas V, doubt-
less under the supervision of Alberti. The piazza at Pienza
is the first of the new Renaissance town designs that was
actually built. In the Palazzo Piccolomini, Rossellino imi-
tated the facade articulation of the Palazzo Rucellai, and
Alberti’s influence is clear in the bold blocks of the con-
fronting church and palaces, to which pilasters, columns,
and arches were added as decoration. Alberti’s ideas on
city planning also influenced other projects, including
Filarete’s plan for Sforzinda (see fig. 15.61) and the urban-
istic vision of Luciano Laurana (see fig. 14.30).

Plans and facades of churches built in Florence in the
mid- and late Quattrocento show strong Albertian influ-
ences. The Palazzo Pitti in Florence (fig. 10.12), com-
menced for Luca Pitti, a wealthy merchant, was attributed
to Brunelleschi until the discovery that construction did
not begin until about 1457, more than a decade after his
death. The Quattrocento structure was originally limited

Above: 10.10. BERNARDO ROSSELLINO. Plan of Piazza Pio H,
Pienza. 1459-62. Commissioned by Pope Pius II.

10.11. BERNARDO ROSSELLINO. Cathedral and Piccolomini Palace, Pienza. 1459-62. Commissioned by Pope Pius II.

In his autobiography, entitled Commentaries , Pius described the cathedral: “The facade itself is 72 feet high, made of stone resembling the
Tiburtine, white and shining as marble. It was modeled on those of ancient temples and richly decorated with columns and arches and
semicircular niches designed to hold statues.... The other walls are of less precious material.... There are three naves, as they are called.
The middle one is wider. All are the same height. This was according to the directions of Pius who had seen the plan among the Germans
in Austria. It makes the church more graceful and lighter.”

FLORENTINE ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE, c. 1 4 3 0-5 5 • 247

10.12. Palazzo Pitti with the Boboli Gardens and Forte Belvedere, Florence, as seen in a painting by the Flemish artist Giuso Utens, 1598-99. Oil
on canvas, 56V4 x lUVs" (1.43 x 2.85 m). Museo Storico-Topografico “Firenze Com’era,” Florence. Palace begun 1458. Commissioned by Luca
Pitti, who owned this large site by 1418.

This view shows the facade as originally planned, before it was doubled in length in 1618-35. Other wings were added in the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries. Both the Boboli Gardens and the Forte Belvedere seen here are sixteenth-century additions to the palace complex.

to the central seven bays shown in this painting, but it is
not known whether the later courtyard seen here was orig-
inally intended. The powerful rustication and the grandeur
of the superimposed arcades is based on ancient aqueducts,
the ruins of which can still be found in the countryside
around Rome. They seem alien to the taste of Brunelleschi
as we have seen it earlier (see figs. 6.7-6.21), but it has
been suggested that this dramatic new palace style might
somehow be related to Brunelleschi’s rejected design for
Palazzo Medici (see p. 174). Others relate the style to the
influence of Alberti; one proposed architect is the Floren-
tine Luca Fancelli, who was not only deeply imbued with
Albertian ideas, but was also in Florence at the time, and
built much of Sant’ Andrea in Mantua after Alberti’s
designs. After the palazzo became the official residence of
the Medici grand dukes, it was extended during the late
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (see fig. 20.26), and
the Boboli Gardens, visible in the painting, were devel-
oped. In the nineteenth century it served briefly as the res-
idence of the Italian monarchy when Florence was the new
nation’s capital.

ALBERTI AND THE ART OF PAINTING.
Alberti’s position in relation to the pictorial art of his time
is striking, but difficult to assess. It is still a moot point
among scholars whether his ideas on perspective are a sys-
temization of what the painters and sculptors he had met
were already doing. In any case, Alberti’s perspective
theory was based on the medieval tradition of studying
optics, derived from the writings of Aristotle. De pictura
and Della pittura are important as the first known treatises
on painting, as distinguished from handbooks of shop
practice, such as Cennino Cennini’s Libro delVarte .

Alberti’s formula for perspective used the height of a
human being in the foreground as a basic module; the base
line was then divided into segments corresponding to one-
third of this height. His system sets the vanishing point at
the height of the figure above the base line. Whether this
proportional structure had been outlined by Brunelleschi is
unknown, but Alberti’s presentation provided clarification
and a published system that any artist could follow.

The remainder of Alberti’s treatise is devoted to what he
calls istoria — which can be translated as “history,”

248

THE QUATTROCENTO

“story”, or “narrative” — and how it should be repre-
sented, and to a discussion of the education of the painter.
His three principles of pictorial art consist of circumscrip-
tion, composition, and reception of light. These principles
encompass Alberti’s notions on drawing, division of the
pictorial surface, light and shade, and color, his recom-
mendations for naturally balanced color constituting a
direct attack on the often aggressive color patterns of
Trecento painting. Alberti was concerned with consistency
and propriety in the representation of persons of various
ages and various physical and social types, with their reac-
tions to the dramatic situations in which the istoria placed
them, and with the delicacies of anatomical rendering of
bodies and features. He wished the narrative to unfold
with copiousness and with a variety of humans and
animals in poses and movements full of grace and
beauty — a goal that was in opposition not only to the
figural alignments common in the Trecento, but also to
those in the compositions of Masaccio.

Above all, Alberti was well aware of what we might call
the magical qualities in pictorial art, which he said were
the foundation of religion and the noblest gift of “the
gods.” “Painting,” he said, “contains a divine force that
not only makes absent men present, as friendship is said to
do, but moreover makes the dead seem almost alive.”
Alberti viewed the artist as a person whose education
demanded the intellectual activity of the traditional Liberal
Arts as well as technical training. Della pittura established
a new dignity for both the art of painting and the artist,
and laid a foundation that changed our understanding of
the visual arts. The treatise’s last words summarize what
Alberti desired: “Absolute and perfect painting.”

In many respects Alberti’s ideals harmonize with the art
of Masaccio, the only painter he mentions in the preface to
Della pittura , but they are even closer to the painting of
Fra Filippo Lippi and Fra Angelico, whom Alberti must
have known personally. The new perspective governs Fra
Angelico’s Annunciation in the San Marco hallway (see fig.
9.7) — as distinguished from his pre-Albertian treatment of
this subject at Cortona (see fig. 9.1) — and his San Marco
altarpiece (see fig. 9.4). The frequent use of a foreground
figure who looks out at the spectator in the work of Fra
Filippo and Fra Angelico, the copiousness and variety of
their compositions, and their analysis of the reception of
light all correspond to Alberti’s principles. By the end of
the century some of the classical subjects he recommended
were re-created by such painters as Sandro Botticelli and
Andrea Mantegna (see fig. 13.29).

In the 1430s and 1440s, the two surviving giants of early
Quattrocento Florentine sculpture, Ghiberti and
Donatello, underwent changes of style that are in keeping
with Alberti’s new doctrine, if not always in accordance

with its details. Both sculptors may have become
acquainted with Alberti during visits to Rome prior to
Alberti’s return to Florence in 1434; the dedication of his
Della pittura of 1436 to Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, Donatello,
Masaccio, and Luca della Robbia suggests long friendship.

Ghiberti after 1425

Ghiberti’s second set of doors for the Florentine Baptistery,
the so-called Gates of Paradise (see fig. 10.1), were so pro-
foundly influenced by Alberti’s ideas that they can almost
be understood as a programmatic exposition of his theo-
ries. Ghiberti was in his late forties when he was awarded
the commission for the final set of baptistery doors,
devoted to the Old Testament, in 1425. The humanist
chancellor of Florence, Lionardo Bruni, proposed a scheme
of twenty-eight scenes that matched the two previous sets
of doors and would have allowed Ghiberti to use his com-
petition panel of the Sacrific of Isaac (see figs. 3.33,
7. 3-7. 4). A second proposal reduced the number of scenes
to twenty-four, but the final scheme has only ten large
square fields. This meant, of course, that Ghiberti’s com-
petition panel could not be incorporated into the final set.
In the new design, the constricting quatrefoils that had
framed scenes and figures on the earlier sets are aban-
doned, and so is the notion of gilded figures and forms set
against a bronze background; now each square is totally
gilded, background and all. Donatello had pioneered this
idea in his marble St. George relief (see fig. 7.14), in which
he created a unified sense of space without resorting to
contrasts of color or medium.

The present title of the doors derives from the fact that
the area between a baptistery and the entrance to its cathe-
dral is known in Italian as the paradiso . It is reported that
Michelangelo, playing on this word, said that Ghiberti’s
second doors were worthy to be the “Gates of Paradise,”
and this nickname stuck. The modeling in wax of all ten
scenes and the friezes of the frame has been dated between
1429 and 1437, when all were cast in bronze. Finishing,
gilding, and other time-consuming processes meant that
the doors were not set in place until 1452.

Each panel deals with one or more incidents from the
Old Testament, arranged within a consistent space that
stretches from foreground into the remote distance.
Although each panel was cast in a single piece, the fore-
ground figures are so highly projected that they are almost
in the round. The level of relief gradually decreases as the
figures diminish in size and recede into the background,
the most distant being scarcely raised above the surface.
The illusion of continuous space is enhanced by the use of
gold over the entire relief, giving the feeling that figures
and space are united within a golden atmosphere.

FLORENTINE ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE, c. 1 4 3 0- 5 5

2 4 9

The first scene, the story of Adam and Eve (fig. 10.13),
shows the Creation of Adam at the lower left, that of Eve
in the center, the Temptation in the distance at the extreme
left, and the Expulsion from the Garden at the extreme
right. The Creation of Eve has a central place because of
the doctrine that her birth from the side of Adam foretold
the creation of the Church. This parallel, represented in
medieval manuscripts and stained glass, was also set forth
in a chapter of the Summa of St. Antoninus, and it is pos-
sible that Antoninus was responsible for the programs of
this and numerous other important Florentine works of
art (see pp. 224, 228). The chapter from the Summa in
question is a sermon on St. John the Baptist, to whom the
Baptistery is dedicated, in which Antoninus compares
the saint to a lantern whose light, thrown upon the Old
Testament, brings forth the New. The ten specific Old Tes-
tament stories discussed by Anoninus are found in nine of
the ten panels of the doors, which vary only occasionally
from his text.

Ghiberti had represented the ideal male nude in the com-
petition relief for the North Doors of the Baptistery (see
fig. 7.3) and in the North Doors themselves (see fig. 7.6);
the female nudes in his Creation relief for the Gates of
Paradise are noteworthy as the first sensuous female nudes
of the Renaissance. Although they are not classical in their
proportions, they have some of the voluptuousness of the
ancient nude sculptures Ghiberti must have seen in Rome.

The Creation * s graceful nude male and female figures con-
trast with the folds of the drapery and the clouds that
shimmer around the angels and the figure of God. Here
Ghiberti has created depth only to the limited extent
needed for the Temptation a few yards off, and there is no
distant view or horizon line, but in later reliefs on the
doors he often leads the eyes past events in the middle
ground into the deep distance.

By the time he made the Jacob and Esau relief in the
third row (fig. 10.14), Ghiberti had adopted the perspec-
tive construction formulated by Alberti in De pictura. Pre-
sumably the relief was composed shortly after Alberti’s
arrival in Florence in 1434. The protruding apron that
Ghiberti had used in the North Doors (see figs. 7. 5-7.6)
here becomes a base line, divided into sections as Alberti
indicated, and from these divisions Ghiberti projected
orthogonals to the central vanishing point. The pavement
squares in the patch of raised terrace at the right do not
recede to this vanishing point, and therefore do not corre-
spond to the Albertian construction. But Ghiberti must
have realized that these squares, if drawn in rigid con-
formity to Alberti’s scheme, would have been compressed
into absurdly distorted shapes. This shortcoming of one-
point perspective becomes evident at the sides of an
extended view, where it is necessary to make the transver-
sals curve away from the picture plane. The narrative
(which is based on Genesis 25 ) unfolds from the

10.13. LORENZO GHIBERTI. The Creation, panel from the
Gates of Paradise (see fig. 10.1) formerly on the Baptistery, Florence,
c. 1425-37. Gilded bronze, 31 V 4 " (79 cm) square. Museo dell’Opera
del Duomo, Florence.

10.14. LORENZO GHIBERTI. Jacob and Esau, panel from
the Gates of Paradise (see fig. 10.1), formerly on the Baptistery,
Florence, c. 1435. Gilded bronze, 3 IV 4 " (79 cm) square. Museo
delPOpera del Duomo, Florence.

25O

THE QUATTROCENTO

background to the foreground. On the rooftop, to the
right, Rebecca, feeling her twins struggling within her,
receives God’s explanation of the two hostile peoples who
will spring from her womb. Under the left arch she appears
in bed, prepared for childbirth. In the center, partly con-
cealed by the foreground figures, Esau sells his birthright.
On the right, “taught by God” according to Antoninus,
Rebecca rehearses Jacob in his “pious fraud,” which will
be accomplished by the meat and skin of the kid he holds.
Esau is seen at the far right going hunting. St. Antoninus’s
interpretation culminates in the foreground, where Jacob,
symbolizing the Christians, receives the blessing on the
step that foretells his vision of a ladder to heaven. The
disappointed Esau, who confronts Isaac in the center,
represents the Jews.

The arches are supported by piers, not columns, and the
Corinthian order is used as decoration (see pp. 242-44);

10.15. LORENZO GHIBERTI. Self-Portrait , from the Gates of
Paradise (see fig. 10.1), c. 1448-52. Gilded bronze. Museo
dell’Opera del Duomo, Florence.

presumably Alberti had discussed such ideas before he
wrote them down in De re aedificatoria . But the architec-
ture is Albertian in a deeper sense, for Jacob and Esau is
an early example of a spatial construction that abandons
the double scale of the Middle Ages in favor of Alberti’s
doctrine of visual unity. A single scale for figures and archi-
tecture is achieved by setting the building a measurable dis-
tance behind the foreground figures and allowing some of
the incidents to move back into it. The figures, too,
demonstrate Alberti’s contention that the drapery should
reveal the beauty of the limbs beneath, as seen in the four
figures at the extreme left. Every motion is harmonious
within the perfectly coordinated space. Running across
both doors just above eye level, Ghiberti’s conspicuous
signature reminds us who was responsible for this
“marvelous art”. Nearby is his self-portrait in a medallion
of the frame (fig. 10.15); it is an unforgettable self-
assessment. In Alberti’s phrase, Ghiberti has made “the
dead seem almost alive.”

Luca della Robbia

Alberti’s introductory note to Della pittura contains one
name that is surprising, since Luca della Robbia (1399 or
1400-1482) does not seem to belong in the same league as
Brunelleschi, Ghiberti, Donatello, and Masaccio, the other
artists mentioned. Writing as he was in the 1430s, Alberti’s
confidence was doubtless based on the marble Cantoria
(choir gallery) being carved by Luca to be placed over the
door of the left sacristy of Florence Cathedral. Both Luca’s
gallery (fig. 10.16) and Donatello’s over the door of the
right sacristy (see fig. 10.19) were removed when the musical
requirements for a grand-ducal wedding in the seventeenth
century rendered them obsolete. In the historical docu-
ments, Luca’s Cantoria is described as an “organ pulpit,”
but that by no means excludes singers and perhaps other
instrumentalists as well, given the small choirs and portable
organs of the period. Documents reveal that a “small” organ
was mounted on Donatello’s Cantoria during the 1440s.

Luca’s gallery consists of a parapet divided by paired
pilasters supported on consoles. The marble panels are
carved with music-making children and adolescents illus-
trating Psalm 150, which is inscribed on the Cantoria. The
children praise the Lord “with the sound of the trumpet ...
with the psaltery and harp ... with the timbrel and dance
. . . with stringed instruments and organs . . . upon the high-
sounding cymbals.” They are beautifully grouped in
compositions that are centralized or balanced — moving,
playing, singing in relaxed happiness. His famous singing
boys — some treble, some bass (fig. 10.17) — offer an unex-
pected touch of real experience within the idealized figures
and graceful compositions.

FLORENTINE ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE, c. 1 4 3 0- 5 5

Z 5 I

10.16. LUCA DELLA ROBBIA. Cantona.
1431-38. Marble, length 17' (5.18 m). JVlusco
dell’Opera del Duomo, Florence. Removed from the
Duomo. Commissioned by the Opera del Duomo.
Luca’s Cantoria , like Donatello’s (see fig. 10.19),
was dismembered in 1688 and reconstructed only in
the late nineteenth century, a re-creation that later
had to be corrected. Two bronze figures of putti
in the Musee Jacquemart- Andre, Paris, have been
identified as part of the Cantona , but this
attribution has not been accepted by all scholars.

To posterity, however, the name Della Robbia has more
commonly been associated with works in enameled terra-
cotta with white figures against a blue background. These
durable and colorful works, made following a formula
invented by Luca in the 1430s, could be placed both inside
and out. Luca’s nephew and successor, Andrea della
Robbia, and a host of assistants, continued the Della
Robbia workshop well into the sixteenth century.

Luca’s earliest large enameled terra-cotta was a commis-
sion in 1442 for the Resurrection relief (fig, 10.18) over
the door of the left sacristy of the Florentine Duomo. It
therefore would have sat directly under his Cantona. As
Brunelleschi’s dome was nearing completion, it must have
been evident that the high altar area would be dark, and
Luca’s enameled terra-cotta was a good solution to the
problem of how to enliven this area. The gold highlighting
of certain details, now largely lost, would have given
additional interest to the relief. The stable, symmetrical

10.17. Singing Boys , end panel from the Cantoria
(see fig. 10.16). Marble, 38 x24" (96 x 61 cm).

252

THE QUATTROCENTO

10.18. LUCA DELLA ROBBIA. Resurrection. 1442-45. Blue and white enameled terra-cotta with surface gilding in the halo of Christ, the hair
and wings of the angels, the armor, and elsewhere, 67" x 8 ' 8 " (2 x 2.65 m). North Sacristy Doors. 1446-75. Bronze, 13’8" x 67” (4.2 x 2 m);
each panel 20 Vs x 20 7 /8" (53 x 53 cm), it Cathedral, Florence. Both commissioned by the Opera del Duomo.

The seated figures flanked by angels on the doors include the Madonna and Child, the four Evangelists, and five other saints, including the patron
of Florence, St. John the Baptist. Above this door was originally placed Luca della Robbia’s Cantoria (see figs. 10.16-10.17).

FLORENTINE ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE, c. 1430- 5 5

i 5 3

composition is typical of Luca’s works, while the body of
Christ, the togalike drapery, and the armor of the soldiers
reveal how fully he had absorbed the classicism already
demonstrated in the work of his fellow sculptors.

Two sets of bronze doors for the paired sacristies of
Florence Cathedral were commissioned from Donatello in
1437, but because he made little progress, his commission
for one set was in 1446 transferred to Luca della Robbia,
Michelozzo, and Maso di Bartolommeo. The final
payment for these doors was not made until they were put
into place in 1475. While the model for the panel of St.
Gregory the Great on the lower left has been attributed to
Maso di Bartolommeo, the other nine were designed by
Luca. The technique of the details is refined, but the com-
positions, which repeat the same motif of a seated figure
flanked by angels ten times, are uninspired. It was these
doors that saved the life of Lorenzo de’ Medici at the time
of the Pazzi Conspiracy of 1478 (see pp. 297-98).

Donatello (c. 1433 to c. 1455)

What a contrast there is between Luca’s serenity and the
energy of Donatello’s Cantoria (fig. 10.19)! Donatello was
in Rome in 1432-33, and all the elements of his Cantoria
are found in classical art — the egg-and-dart molding, the
acanthus, the palmetto, the shell, the urn, the mask, and
the paired dolphins that were part of the original decora-
tion. But they never appear in antiquity in such combina-
tions or with such proportional relationships. Even the
most basic architectural elements are unconventional and
unexpected. Donatello’s consoles, for example, have hori-
zontal and vertical volutes that seem about to collide. Every
surface is ornamented, and the colonnettes and backgrounds
are enlivened by rows of inlaid, colored marble disks.

Behind the colonnade surges a torrent of intense activity.
Donatello’s children refuse to be constricted by the neat
frames of Luca della Robbia and seem to rush wildly through

/ \ /A /TT

10.19. DONATELLO. Cantoria . 1433-39. Marble, bronze, and mosaic, length 18’8" ( 5.7 m). Museo dell’Opera del
Duomo, Florence. Removed from the Duomo. Commissioned by the Opera del Duomo.

When Donatello’s Cantoria was reconstructed in the late nineteenth century, the upper frieze was incorrectly re-created;
in addition to the palmettes and vases seen here, it should also include pairs of dolphins flanking shells.

254 • THE QUATTROCENTO

space in jubilant dynamism. Transparent tunics cling to
their limbs and feathery wings erupt from their shoulders.
The result is a work of intense dynamism. Subsequent gen-
erations ranked Donatello’s Cantoria higher than Luca’s
smooth and somewhat static work; Vasari, for example,
wrote with enthusiasm of the sketchy freedom of
Donatello’s surfaces, which from a distance produced an
effect of far greater vigor in its original dim cathedral setting.

One of Donatello’s most delightful works, the so-called
Atys-Amorino , was probably produced around the same
time (fig. 10.20). While the carefree air suggests an ancient
subject, no one has been able to identify which Greek or
Roman figure might have been intended. If this work does
indeed date from the 1430s and the subject is antique, then
this would represent one of the earliest Renaissance works
on an ancient theme. The combination of attributes — the
figure’s youth, the exposure of his genitals by unusual leg-
gings, the wings on his shoulders and sandals, his little
satyr tail, the snake that coils around his feet, the poppy
heads decorating his belt, the cord tied around his head
decorated with a poppy — do not point to any single classi-
cal deity. It seems likely that this joyful figure once held
something that provided a clue to the union of such

10.20. DONATELLO. Atys-Amorino. c. 1435-40(?). Bronze, with
traces of original gilding on the belt, hair, and wings, height 41 "
(1.04 m). Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence. By 1677 this
sculpture was being identified as an ancient work.

disparate attributes. Perhaps this is a construct by a
Renaissance humanist who synthesized several antique
themes into a single figure.

The Atys-Amorino was almost certainly intended for a
domestic setting, but where it might have been placed in a
Renaissance home or garden is unknown. Despite these
uncertainties, the infectious mood created by the figure’s
carefree expression and relaxed contrapposto stance is yet
another example of both the antique revival in the Renais-
sance and the diversity of Donatello’s style.

The Annunciation (fig. 10.21) shows another aspect
of Donatello’s new classicism. The architecture is as

. ; i

10.21. DONATELLO. Annunciation. 1430s. Limestone and terra-
cotta with gilding, 13'9" x 9' (4.20 x 2.75 m). Hi Sta. Croce, Florence.
Commissioned by a member of the Cavalcanti family.

FLORENTINE ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE, c. 1 4 3 0- 5 5 • 2 55

unconventional as that of the Cantoria , for a colossal egg-
and-dart molding invades the frieze, and masks form the
capitals. The terra-cotta putti above the arched pediment
may be a reference to Etruscan temples, which Vitruvius
reported had terra-cotta figures decorating their roofs.
Donatello’s treatment of the traditional narrative is subtle:
Mary gently recoils in fear from the message of the kneel-
ing angel before suddenly turning toward him, placing her
hand on her heart to indicate her acceptance of his unex-
pected message. The faces of Mary and the angel, with
their straight Greek noses, low foreheads, and hair drawn
back from a central parting, are among Donatello’s most
classical passages. But neither these nor the evident classi-
cism of the drapery can submerge the emotional tension
evident in the momentary poses and complex surfaces.

The least expected work of this period in any medium is
Donatello’s bronze nude David (fig. 10.22), the earliest
known free-standing nude statue in the round since antiq-
uity. This fact alone would make it an important example
of Renaissance art. What is equally remarkable, especially
in comparison with Donatello’s earlier marble David (see
fig. 7.11) is the sculptor’s interpretation of the theme. The
slight boy, clothed only in ornamented leather boots and a
hat crowned with laurel, stands with one hand on his hip
and the other gripping Goliath’s great sword. The con-
trapposto first seen in Donatello’s St. Mark (see fig. 7.12)
is more emphatic here — an effect enhanced by the active
positions of the arms. David’s pose seems self-conscious, as
if the boy hero, who is described in the Bible as “ruddy,
and fine in appearance with handsome features” (1 Samuel
17:42), is aware of his own beauty. The Bible also supports
Donatello’s representation of David as nude, for the boy at
first put on the armor of Saul in preparation to do battle
with the giant but then took it off (1 Samuel 17:38-39).
The pose emphasizes the free-standing nature of the
work, urging us to study it from various viewpoints.
David’s face is largely shaded by the hat, leaving his
expression mysterious.

In the scholarly and popular literature on Donatello, the
frankly sensuous nature of this David has been cited as an
indication of the artist’s homosexuality. The facts about
Donatello’s personal life are limited, but it must be remem-
bered that this expensive bronze would not have been
made for Donatello’s personal satisfaction. Whatever its
intended setting, the Medici, who seem to have commis-
sioned it, found it appropriate to place the sculpture in a
central position in their palace, visible from the street (see
fig. 6.26). The palace’s politicized decor included works
that refer to traditional Florentine themes — for example,
Hercules (see figs. 13.2-13.4) and the Old Testament
heroine Judith (see fig. 12.7) — while Paolo Uccello’s Battle
of San Romano series (see figs. 11.5-11.6) celebrated a

10.22. DONATELLO. David, c. 1446-60(?). Bronze, with traces of
gilded details; height 62 V 4 " (1.58 m). Museo Nazionale del Bargello,
Florence. Perhaps commissioned by Cosimo de’ Medici for the
courtyard of the Palazzo Medici (see fig. 6.26).

While the figure was still in the Medici courtyard it bore an
inscription stating: “The victor is whoever defends the fatherland.
All-powerful God crushes the angry enemy. Behold, a boy overcame
the great tyrant. Conquer, O citizens!”

z 5 6 •

THE QUATTROCENTO

Florentine victory. In the Speculum bumanae salvationis —
a fourteenth-century compendium of imagery, widely
reprinted in the fifteenth century, connecting personages
and events of the Old and New Testaments, David’s
victory over Goliath symbolizes Christ’s triumph over
Satan. The figure of David has also been recognized as a
potent symbol for the city of Florence. The laurel crown on
the hat and the laurel wreath on which David stands are
probably allusions to the Medici family, but they could
also refer to David’s later activities as a poet. Perhaps the
distinctly unheroic nature of Donatello’s bronze David is
intended to emphasize that even this unlikely hero could,
with the help of God — as is emphasized in the Bible (1
Samuel 17:4 6^7 ) — defeat a giant who was threatening his
homeland. Whether the figure was intended from the
beginning to stand in the Medici courtyard is unknown,
but its emphatic three-dimensionality suggests that
Donatello must have been inspired by a location that
would encourage multiple viewpoints.

Donatello’s activity in Florence was interrupted when he
left for Padua in the early 1440s. Remaining there for more
than a decade, he changed the course of sculpture and
painting in northern Italy. A whole school of painting grew
up around him while he was, as he put it, among the
Paduan “fogs and frogs.” Vasari explained that Donatello
disliked the adulation he received in Padua and was glad to
return to Florence, where he knew that the habitual criti-
cal attitude of the Florentines would spur him on to greater
achievements. This comment introduces an essential aspect
of the Florentine Renaissance, in which conflict of wills
was a determinant of style.

Donatello was probably called to Padua to execute the
colossal equestrian statue in bronze of the Venetian con-
dottiere Erasmo da Narni, whose nickname was Gattame-
lata (“Honeyed Cat” or “Calico Cat”). The monument
still stands in the square in front of the basilica of Sant’
Antonio, where Donatello placed it after its completion in
1453 (fig. 10.23), although the tombs that must have sur-
rounded it have disappeared. Although the funds for the
work were provided by the dead general’s family according
to a stipulation in his will, this kind of monument, previ-
ously reserved for rulers, must have been authorized by a
decree of the Venetian Senate, who in 1438 had awarded
Erasmo da Narni the baton the figure holds.

The Gattamelata is not the first equestrian monument of
the late Middle Ages and Renaissance in Italy. In Florence,
Donatello had an inspiring forerunner in Uccello’s frescoed
Sir John Hawkwood (see fig. 11.3). All the Tuscan exam-
ples, however, had been intended for interiors. In the Tre-
cento, the ruling Scala family of Verona had built outdoor
tombs surmounted by equestrian statues (see fig. 5.25),
and Bonino da Campione had created an amazing monu-

ment to Bernabo Visconti (see fig. 5.20). In 1441 Niccolo
d’Este was commemorated by an equestrian statue by
two otherwise unknown Florentine sculptors, which stood
in front of the Cathedral of Ferrara until it was destroyed
in 1796.

Donatello was primarily influenced, however, by surviv-
ing ancient Greek and Roman examples: the Marcus Aure-
lius in Rome (see fig. 1.4), then thought to represent
Constantine; the so-called Regisole in Pavia, an imperial
statue now lost; and the quadriga of horses on the facade
of San Marco in Venice. Donatello’s sculpture rivals the
Marcus Aurelius in majesty and surpasses it in determina-
tion. Realizing the effect of the high base and the vast
space in which the Gattamelata was to be placed,
Donatello restricted his design to bold masses and power-
ful tensions. Any minor shapes that might compete with
the broad curves of the horse’s anatomy are suppressed.
The tail, tied at the end, forms a taut arc, while the horse’s
left forehoof, poised on a cannonball, forms another. The
powerful diagonal of the general’s baton and sword ties the

10.23. DONATELLO. Equestrian Monument of Gattamelata.
c. 1445-53. Bronze, height 12'2" (3.7 m). m Piazza del Santo, Padua.
Commissioned by the Venetian Senate.

FLORENTINE ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE, c. 1 4 3 0- 5 5 * 2,57

composition together from above the horse’s head down
to his hind leg.

Donatello may well have seen Gattamelata himself in
Florence or Rome, and it is likely that the head reproduces
his features. The compressed lips, firmly set jaw, wide eyes,
and heavy, arched brows all suggest a powerful personal-
ity in the prime of life (fig. 10.24). The horse, with his
swelling veins, open jaws and flaring eyes and nostrils, is
under the general’s control. Donatello has created a majes-
tic image of command. Although the humanist Vespasiano
da Bisticci was so devoted to the contemporary cult of
personality that he wrote Lives of Illustrious Men of the
Fifteenth Century , he never set before his public a charac-
ter more imposing than Gattamelata.

The general is dressed in fifteenth-century armor, com-
plete with giant broadsword and greaves, but Donatello
borrowed the kilt and short sleeves made of leather thongs
from ancient Roman military costume. Victory masks and
winged genii, flying or on horseback, decorate the armor
and saddle. On the breastplate, a winged victory crying out
in fury enhances, by contrast, the composure of the
general. Virtually every element contributes to the impres-
sion of emotional and physical forces held under stern

10.24. Head of Gattamelata, detail of fig. 10.23.

control. In the Gattamelata , Donatello created the ideal
man of the Renaissance, the exemplar of Albertian virtus.
Donatello’s other major commission in Padua was the high
altar of Sant’ Antonio, a grand architectural construction
decorated with four large narrative reliefs, a number of
smaller ones, and seven life-sized statues in bronze. The
altar, remodeled in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries
and wrongly restored at the end of the nineteenth, no
longer looks at all as Donatello intended. The individual
reliefs and statues are unchanged, but their ambience is
lost; a painted altarpiece by Mantegna may reflect some-
thing of Donatello’s original design (see fig. 15.19).

The complex architectural settings of Donatello’s four
reliefs representing the legend of St. Anthony of Padua
(figs. 10.25-10.26) may be understood as his answer to
Ghiberti’s Gates of Paradise (see figs. 10.1, 10.14). Less
harmonious, they present an explosive new conception of
space as an alternative to Ghiberti’s adherence to Albertian
principles. The Miracle of the Believing Donkey (fig.

10.25) , for example, tells how a skeptic refused to accept
the presence of the body of Christ in the Eucharist unless
his donkey would kneel down and worship it, which the
animal promptly did. Donatello shows St. Anthony
turning from the altar with the consecrated bread as the
beast kneels on the top step. The crowds of the faithful are
struck by astonishment, their lively poses and agitated
drapery creating a vigorous surface pattern. The low view-
point excludes any Albertian floor squares, and the figures
are dwarfed by a construction with barrel vaults recalling
the ancient basilica of Maxentius and Constantine in
Rome. Donatello has filled the openings with metal grilles,
through which one sees other barrel vaults and grilles.
Between the arches, pilasters with modified Corinthian
capitals support an entablature. This spatial formulation
breaks forward and outward rather than receding
smoothly into the distance, in sharp contrast to the more
conventional treatment of space in the Gates of Paradise.

St. Anthony of Padua Healing the Wrathful Son (fig.

10.26) is even more surprising. Here Anthony heals the leg
of a young man who had cut off his foot in remorse for
kicking his mother. In the stadium-like setting, most of the
elements recede according to the new perspectival conven-
tion, but a fantastic building in the background and a
structure with a flight of steps in the right foreground are
set at angles to the main axis and refuse to conform, as if
to provide a spatial fracturing appropriate to the theme.
Clouds float in Donatello’s sculptured sky, and the sun
throws out sword-shaped rays.

Donatello’s dramatic compositions must have been a
revelation for the north Italian painters of his day, and
their influence continued to make an impact for the next
century and a half.

2 5 8

THE QUATTROCENTO

10.25, 10.26. DONATELLO. Miracle of the Believing Donkey and St. Anthony of Padua Healing the Wrathful Son. 1444-49. Bronze, each
22 V 2 x 48 V 2 " (57 x 123 cm). Reliefs on the high altar, tl Sant’ Antonio, Padua. Commissioned by the Area del Santo for Sant’ Antonio, Padua.

FLORENTINE ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE, c. 1 4 3 0 - 5 5 * 259

10.27. BERNARDO ROSSELLINO. Tomb of Lionardo Bruni. c. 1445. White and colored marbles, 20' x 10'4V2" (6.1 x 3.2 m). m Sta. Croce,
Florence. Commissioned by the Signoria of Florence or the College and Council of Arezzo. Originally certain details were colored and/or gilded.

2 6 0

THE QUATTROCENTO

Florentine Tomb Sculpture

Throughout the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance,
sculptors on the Italian peninsula were kept busy produc-
ing funerary monuments, from simple floor slabs to splen-
did constructions erected on walls and even, when space
on the walls was running out, squeezed onto the piers of
churches. One of the most impressive wall tombs is that of
Lionardo Bruni (fig. 10.27), the chancellor of the Floren-
tine Republic and an eminent humanist scholar, by
Bernardo Rossellino (1409-1464), the sculptor and archi-
tect who worked on the Palazzo Rucellai, and in Pienza.
Bernardo was the fourth of five brothers who were stone-
cutters from Settignano (Antonio, the youngest, will be
discussed later). In the tomb, the effigy of the chancellor,
holding one of his own books, lies on a bier upheld by
eagles. Angels in relief, posed like winged victories,
support a tablet with a Latin inscription: “After Lionardo
departed from life, history is in mourning and eloquence is
dumb, and it is said that the Muses, Greek and Latin alike,
cannot restrain their tears.” Above, the Virgin and Child
are flanked by angels, while at the top others steady a
shield with the marzocco (lion) of the Florentine Republic.
The rugged features of the old statesman are turned
toward us, his brow crowned with laurel. In his clear-cut,
simple arrangement and emphasis on the dignity of the
individual, Bernardo established the standard type of the
Florentine wall tomb.

The Portrait Bust

The first dated Renaissance portrait bust is one of a pair of
portraits of the Medici brothers, Piero (fig. 10.28) and
Giovanni, sculpted by Mino da Fiesole (1429-1484) while
both sitters were still alive. Underneath each bust is a full
identification: name and age, year of bust, name of sculp-
tor. The busts mark a distinct change from the patronage
of Cosimo il Vecchio, the sitters’ father, who had avoided
the kind of personal ostentation and commemoration sug-
gested by these works. In the following decades such por-
traiture would not be limited to the Medici family.

Although we prize such portraits for the glimpse they
give us into Renaissance attitudes toward the significance
of the individual, their function as objects in Renaissance
society is far from clear. We know that busts were some-
times placed over the exterior and interior doorways of
Renaissance palaces, but whether they played any particu-

lar role in family ritual is uncertain. Although the com-
memoration of the individual is an idea derived from
Greek and Roman writings, ancient Roman portrait busts
do not seem to have been a visual source for Mino’s por-
traits, since the form of Mino’s busts, with the figure cut
off at chest level, is not related to ancient prototypes.

The innovations of the artists discussed in chapters 9
and 10 are based on the achievements of Brunelleschi and
Masaccio. Classical references are frequent in architecture,
the settings of paintings, and in works of sculpture. Masac-
cio’s naturalism, which could be blunt at times, is modified
in some works by a greater interest in idealism. An increas-
ingly subtle use of perspective is demonstrated in both
paintings and relief sculptures. These developments laid
the groundwork for later Quattrocento art in Florence.

10.28. MINO DA FIESOLE. Portrait of Piero de 3 Medici. 1453.
Marble, height 18" (46 cm). Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence.
Most likely commissioned by Piero de’ Medici.

The carved pattern suggests a sumptuous brocade; it is decorated
with emblems of the sitter and his family, including a diamond ring
intertwined with a ribbon and the word SEMPER (always).

FLORENTINE ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE, c. 1 4 3 0 - 5 5

Z6l

FLORENTINE PAINTING AT

MID-CENTURY

F our painters, each with a distinctive
individual style — Paolo Uccello, Domenico
Veneziano, Andrea del Castagno, and Piero
della Francesca — demonstrate the impact of
the ideas that concerned Leonbattista Alberti.
These four were active when Fra Angelico and Fra Filippo
Lippi were still at work (see Chapter 9); the age gap
between these six artists was insignificant, so there must
have been considerable interchange among them. In the
works of their imitators, after mid-century, the styles of all
six tend to fuse.

Paolo Uccello

Paolo di Dono, known as Paolo Uccello (Paul “Bird,”
c. 1397-1475) was apprenticed to Lorenzo Ghiberti in
1407 as a garzone (the Italian word for “boy” or
“y°uth”). Although Uccello had a long life, he seems to
have painted little, and although he occasionally received
an important commission, he was never responsible for a
major altarpiece or large fresco cycle. At least twice his
patrons complained of the unconventionality of his work.
In his tax declaration of 1469, he lamented that he was old
and infirm, had no means of livelihood, and that his wife
was sick.

Everything about his mature work indicates Uccello’s
fascination with perspective (fig. 11.2). Giorgio Vasari
wrote that Uccello could use perspective to represent a
polyhedron with seventy-two sides projected in space.
While this would be impressive in and of itself, Uccello
added a further complication by projecting a stick with a

11.2. PAOLO UCCELLO. Perspective Study . c. 143CMK). Pen and
ink, IIV 2 x 9 V 2 " (29 x 24.1 cm). Gabinetto dei Disegni e Stampe,
Uffizi Gallery, Florence. This is only one of several drawings of
objects in perspective by Uccello.

Opposite: 11.1. ANDREA DEL CASTAGNO. Last Supper and, above, the Resurrection, Crucifixion , and Entombment. 1447. Frescoes,
width of wall 32’ (9.76 m). Cenacolo (refectory) of Sant’Apollonia, Florence. For the sinopia , see fig. 1.16.

FLORENTINE PAINTING AT MID-CENTURY * 2,63

scroll from each of the seventy-two sides, all executed in
perfect recession. Also from Vasari comes the delightful
tale that Uccello once refused to leave his work to follow
his wife to bed, answering, “What a sweet mistress is this
perspective.” He seems to have viewed perspective as a
challenge and perhaps also as a game.

Little remains of Uccello’s artistic achievements before
his fortieth year. His documented work at San Marco in
Venice in 1425-27 is presumed lost, unless certain decora-
tive mosaic designs attributed to him can be accepted. His
earliest dated painting is a frescoed monument to the
English condottiere Sir John Hawkwood (fig. 11.3). Before
his death in 1394, the city of Florence promised Hawk-
wood an equestrian monument sculpted in marble; instead
they substituted a fresco in the cathedral by Agnolo Gaddi
and Giuliano Pesello, painted in 1395. This was later
replaced with Uccello’s version, which gives the illusion
that the monument is bronze. Like Donatello’s later Gat -
tamelata (see fig. 10.23), Uccello’s Hawkwood monument
emphasizes the rider’s control of the horse, but the Hawk-
wood monument is less tense: the baton is lifted lightly, the
forehoof paws the air, the tail flows free. In contrast to the
Roman trappings of Gattamelata , Uccello’s general wears
contemporary armor, cloak, and cap.

The pedestal rests on a base supported by three consoles,
not unlike those of Luca della Robbia’s Cantoria , also
designed for the cathedral (see fig. 10.16). The fresco has
been detached and is now, unfortunately, hung lower on
the wall than its original placement, causing the consoles
to lose their full illusionistic effect. Following the principles
of Brunelleschi and Alberti, Uccello had established the
original vanishing point to coincide with the eye level of a
person standing in the side aisle; the vanishing point is now
below the level of the cathedral pavement. The lowering of
the painting does not matter for horse and rider, however,
who are seen as if they are on the same level as the viewer.
The disjunction between two viewpoints is disturbing once
it is noted, and it is surprising given Uccello’s interest in
perspective. Documents may provide an explanation, for
Uccello’s patrons objected to his first horse and rider, and
he was forced to repaint them. Perhaps Uccello, who seems
to have been a lifelong practical joker, originally repre-
sented horse and rider from a worm’s-eye view that would
have emphasized the horse’s belly and shown little of the
rider except for the bottoms of his feet and the underside
of his chin and nose. Its accuracy notwithstanding, such a
representation would surely not have satisfied his patrons.
In any case, the discrepancies in the finished fresco are
noticed only after a thoughtful analysis.

Despite the inconsistency of viewpoints, Uccello’s
monument may well have tricked Quattrocento viewers
into believing that Hawkwood had been granted a genuine

11.3. PAOLO UCCELLO. Sir John Hawkwood. 1436. Fresco,
transferred to canvas; 24' x 13'3 " (7.32 x 4.04 m). Cathedral,
Florence. Commissioned by the Opera del Duomo, Florence.
Hawkwood was bom in about 1320 in Essex; he died in 1394 and
received a grand funeral from the Florentine state. His remains
were buried in England; thus Uccello’s fresco functions more as a
memorial than as a tomb marker.

bronze monument instead of a less prestigious marble one.
Today the illusion is reduced because the background color
surrounding Uccello’s fresco no longer matches the Duomo
walls, and, to make matters worse, the monument is
enclosed in a later, frescoed frame (not shown here). It now
reads like a painting hung on the Duomo wall.

Uccello’s fresco representing The Deluge in the Chiostro
Verde (Green Cloister) of Santa Maria Novella (fig. 11.4)
is part of a cycle started earlier by various painters, includ-
ing Uccello himself. The cloister acquired its name because
the frescoes were largely painted in a terra verde (green

264 *

THE QUATTROCENTO

11.4. PAOLO UCCELLO. The Deluge, c. 1445-55 (?) Fresco, 7' x 16' 9" (2.15 x 5.1 m). Chiostro Verde, Sta. Maria Novella, Florence.
The scenes below are The Sacrifice of Noah and Noah’s Drunkenness.

earth) monochrome. The cycle has been damaged (ironi-
cally enough, considering Uccello’s subject) by floods over
the centuries, but the work is still impressive. Uccello
shows us two scenes within the lunette, giving two views
of Noah’s pyramidal ark, side by side, and creating a
strong perspective recession in the center. As no border
divides the episodes, the figures in the scenes overlap. On
the left, the ark is threatened by thunder, lightning, wind,
and rain. A lightning bolt strikes in the distance, casting
the shadow of a tree being blown away by a wind god,
whose inclusion was recommended by Alberti. Doomed
humans try to board the ark. Riding a swimming horse,
one brandishes a sword and is threatened by another with
a club, while a third clutches at the ark with his fingers.
Others try to stay afloat on wreckage or in barrels. The
club-bearer wears one of the favorite subjects of Uccello’s
perspective investigations, the mazzocchio , a faceted con-
struction of wire or wicker around which a turban-shaped
headdress was draped. The mazzocchio has slipped round

the figure’s neck, and the hair on one side of his head
remains neatly combed, while the other side is disheveled
by the wind. A ladder floats parallel to the ark, providing
two more Albertian orthogonals.

On the right the ark has come to rest, and Noah leans
from its window as the dove, sent forth to discover dry
land, returns. Below the ark is the corpse of a drowned
child; a raven picks out the eyes of another. The cloaked
man standing in the right foreground with one hand
raised, while two hands clutch his ankles from the water
below, has been difficult to identify. The powerful drapery
masses, the intensity of the faces, and the sense of tragedy
in the individual figures and groups are compelling enough
to make us overlook the riddles Uccello seems to pose.

Uccello’s three panels of the Battle of San Romano (see
figs. 11.5-11.6) recall a Florentine victory over the Sienese
in 1432. Commissioned by a member of a prominent
Florentine family, in 1484 they were moved to the Medici
Palace at the command of Lorenzo il Magnifico. Originally

FLORENTINE PAINTING AT MID-CENTURY * 2,65

arched to fit into a vaulted chamber, the panels’ tops were
later truncated, explaining why no horizon line or sky is
visible today. The three panels form a continuing interlace
of horses, horsemen, and weapons on a narrow foreground
stage separated from the landscape background by a screen
of fantastic fruit trees, creating a tapestry-like effect. The
brilliant colors would have been enhanced by the silver
armor (now tarnished and largely unrestorable).

As a whole the battle panels lack the intensity felt in The
Deluge. The rearing horses seem rather wooden, and the
impression is of a tournament rather than a military
engagement. This is partly due to Uccello’s geometriciza-
tion of the forms, as well as his emphasis on ornament
rather than the grim reality of battle; Uccello’s concern with
perspective also distracts from the subject matter. Most of
the broken lances have fallen as Albertian orthogonals, as
have pieces of armor, including, in the lower left-hand corner
of one panel (fig. 11.5), a shield. Around this is wrapped a
scroll bearing Uccello’s signature in perspective, reminding
us that perspective demonstrations often included such
scrolls rotating in space. Horses and horsemen are seen in

profile or in foreshortening so that they recede into depth
or plunge toward the spectator, often at right angles to the
orthogonals formed by the lances. In one instance, at the
lower left of the London panel (fig. 11.6), a soldier has
conveniently fallen on a perspective orthogonal, perpendi-
cular to the picture plane. It is as if perspective is not a phe-
nomenon of vision, but a magical process, implicit in the
air, able to force its will on persons and objects.

Although the landscape looks stylized, it resembles the
hills divided into fields still visible in the Arno Valley. All
sorts of things go on in this background: hand-to-hand
combat and soldiers in pursuit of the enemy expand the
main narrative, while a dog is shown in hot pursuit of a
rabbit, and peasants bring baskets of grapes to the wine
press. The latter two add a sense of daily life and would
have been more prominent had the expanse of landscape
leading back to the horizon and sky not been cut away.
Like so many of the seemingly minor episodes captured in
the background of Renaissance paintings, they express the
desire of artists of the period to capture the full extent of
human experience.

11.5. PAOLO UCCELLO. Battle of San Romano, c. 1435-60. Panel, 6' x 10'5" (1.82 x 3.23 m). Uffizi Gallery, Florence. Commissioned by
Lionardo di Bartolomeo Bartolini Salimbeni. Uccello’s signature is on the shield in the lower left corner. The signature and the central position of
Niccolo da Tolentino, leader of the Florentine forces, in this panel suggest that it may have been the center one in the series of three, only two of
which are reproduced here.

266

THE QUATTROCENTO

11.6. PAOLO UCCELLO. Battle of San Romano, c. 1435-60. Panel, 6' x 10'5" {1.82 x 3.23 m). National Gallery, London. Commissioned by
Lorenzo di Bartolomeo Bartolini Salimbeni. An inventory made of the contents of the Medici Palace in 1492 lists the three panels of the Battle of
San Romano in a bedroom that had belonged to Lorenzo il Magnifico; the other contents of the room including a bed with intarsia decoration,
seven brass candelabra, and a number of other paintings, including animal scenes, a large tondo of the Adoration of the Magi, and portraits.

A technical analysis has revealed that the medium is egg tempera with walnut oil and linseed oil on poplar.

Domenico Veneziano

Domenico Veneziano (c. 1410-1461), as his name dis-
closes, came from Venice. His artistic origins and the dates
of many of his works are as uncertain as the date of his
birth. One of his earliest known works, a large tondo of
the Adoration of the Magi (fig. 11.7), reveals that
Domenico knew well the works of Masaccio and Fra
Angelico. Like their works, the painting sets a many-
figured composition within a naturalistic setting, the forms
projected in space and light. The heads and headgear, the
masses of curled hair, the stockinged legs, and the velvet,
brocade, and fur sleeves are all painted flawlessly, and they
overlap and diminish as they recede into the distance.
Domenico’s landscape background, however, reveals his
northern origins, for it is reminiscent of the shores and
sub-Alpine surroundings of Lake Garda in northern Italy,
with sailboats, castles, a road, travelers, and even a corpse
swinging on a roadside gibbet. Familiarity with Netherlan-
dish works may have prompted such attention to nature

and the details of daily life. The tondo shape itself, an
innovation rapidly being taken up by Quattrocento artists,
poses particular compositional challenges that Domenico
solves by the insistent horizontal of his composition (see
figs. 13.21, 16.39). The elegant costumes would appar-
ently have been illegal in Florence because of sumptuary
laws, but that did not prevent the Florentines from enjoy-
ing their representation. To add a touch of the exotic,
Domenico endowed two of his figures with the towering
hats of Greek courtiers and others with costumes bearing
French and Italian mottoes inscribed in Gothic letters.

In 1438 (see p. 224), Domenico wrote from Perugia,
where he was painting frescoes, to the twenty-two-year-old
Piero the Gouty, son and heir of Cosimo de’ Medici: “I
have hope in God to be able to show you marvelous
things.” Perhaps this tondo was one of them, since it was
in the Medici Palace in 1492. The mottoes are Medicean,
and the standing figure to the right of the second magus is
probably a portrait of Piero de 5 Medici; the sumptuous
textiles would have appealed to Piero’s taste for luxurious

FLORENTINE PAINTING AT MID-CENTURY • 2 6 J

11.7. DOMENICO VENEZIANO. Adoration of the Nlagi. c. 1439—41. Panel, diameter 33" (84 cm).
Gemaldegalerie, Berlin. Perhaps commissioned by Piero de’ Medici for the Medici Palace.

fabrics. By 1439 Domenico was at work in Florence on a
cycle of frescoes for the church of Sant’Egidio, now almost
completely lost. He was assisted by the youthful Piero della
Francesca, Alesso Baldovinetti, and others.

Domenico’s principal surviving work, the St. Lucy altarpiece
(fig. 11.8), was painted about 1445^17. While the altar-
piece has the “modern” square shape that replaced Gothic
polyptychs, there is a reference to the former in the Gothic
arches that frame the enthroned Virgin and Child flanked
by saints Francis, John the Baptist, Zenobius, and Lucy. The
panel glows with a kind of color so foreign to Florentine

experience that it explains Vasari’s unexpected statement
that Domenico’s altarpiece was painted in oil (technical
examination has revealed that it is not). The architecture of
Domenico’s courtyard — arches, spandrels, steps, and an
elaborate pavement inlaid in rose, white, and green marbles,
like the Florentine Campanile — is conceived in color, and
all its shadows are lightened by reflections from adjacent
surfaces. Veneziano shows his understanding of scientific
perspective through his rendering of the complex floor.

Some of the “marvelous things” that Domenico prom-
ised in his letter are suggested by the softly colored shadows

268

THE QUATTROCENTO

11.8. DOMENICO VENEZIANO. Madonna and Child with Sts. Francis, John the Baptist, Zenobius, and Lucy (St. Lucy altarpiece).
c. 1445-47. Panel, 6 '10" x 7' (2.09 x 2.16 m). Uffizi Gallery, Florence. Commissioned for the high altar of Sta. Lucia de’ Magnoli, Florence, in a
chapel that was the property of the Uzzano family. The altarpiece is signed by Domenico. The original frame is lost, and the predella scattered in
several museums; here we offer a reconstruction that clarifies the relationship of the predella panels to the figures above: the Stigmatization of St.
Francis (National Gallery of Art, Washington); St.John the Baptist in the Desert (see fig. 11.10); the Annunciation (see fig. 11.9); a Miracle of St.
Zenobius (see fig. 11.11); and The Marty dom of St. Lucy (Gemaldegalerie, Berlin).

FLORENTINE PAINTING AT MID-CENTURY * 2 69

of the shell niches and the fabrics — the damask below the
Virgin’s feet, the blue cloth of her cloak, the green velvet of
the sable-trimmed mantle thrown over her chair, the vest-
ments of St. Zenobius, the rose-colored cloak of St. Lucy,
and the pearls that shine at the neckline of her tunic and
that of the Virgin. In St. Zenobius’s miter, Domenico has
even distinguished between the dull tone of seed pearls
in the embroidery and the luster of larger pearls. The solid
haloes of earlier art are here transformed into disks
of crystal rimmed with gold. The wrinkled faces of the
male saints suggest that Domenico had studied the works
of Donatello and Lorenzo Ghiberti, while the firm,
muscular forms of St. John’s limbs follow Florentine
practice, and the easy flow of the drapery folds is in
harmony with passages in the Gates of Paradise (see figs.
10.13-10.14). Yet these forms have been created less
by the traditional Florentine means of drawing in line,
followed by shading, than by the changing play of light
on color.

Nowhere is Domenico’s interest in color more apparent
than in the figure of St. Lucy, who holds the palm of mar-
tyrdom and the platter holding her eyes, which she plucked
out and sent to a young man who had admired them exces-
sively. (The Virgin rewarded her with a new pair.) Light
was especially appropriate to Lucy, patron saint of vision,
and Domenico’s light penetrates the shadows of her
rosy cloak and gives three-dimensionality to its folds. This

poised figure seems to typify the new aristocratic ideal of
the Florentine upper middle class. St. Lucy’s swept-back
blond hair, its design enhanced by the wispy locks that
have escaped, brings out the pallor of the face and fore-
head. The head is like one of Domenico’s giant pearls, so
gently does the light glide across it and across the silken
surface of the neck.

The setting of the Annunciation (fig. 11.9), the altar-
piece’s central predella, is a court of elegant forms that
contrast with Mary’s rough bench and simple rush chair,
which are almost identical with those still used in Italian
farmhouses. The angel kneels while Mary crosses her
hands upon her chest. We look through an arch into the
closed garden, symbol of Mary’s virginity, as already seen
in the Annunciations of Fra Angelico (see figs. 9.1, 9.7).
The garden ends in a porta clausa , a gateway studded with
nails and secured with a huge wooden bolt. The rose beds
and the vine clambering over the trellis are painted with
delicate touches that recall the foliage in Masaccio’s fres-
coes (see fig. 8.16). Here Domenico uses a single touch of
the brush to represent a ray of sunlight reflected from a
leaf or petal.

An even more intense rendering of sunlight can be seen
in the predella representing the youthful St. John the
Baptist in the Desert (fig. 11.10). In the Trecento, St. John
had been shown trudging cheerfully off, cross-staff in
hand. Domenico’s picture depicts the boy dropping his

11.9. DOMENICO VENEZIANO. Annunciation, from the predella of the St. Lucy altarpiece (see fig. 11.8). c. 1445-47. Panel, 10 5 /s x 2 IV 4 "
(27 x 54 cm). Fitz william Museum, Cambridge, England.

27O

THE QUATTROCENTO

11.10. DOMENICO VENEZIANO. St.John tbeBaptistin the
Desert, from the predella of the St. Lucy altarpiece (see fig. 11.8).
c. 1445-47. Panel, 1 1 3 /i 6 x 12 V 2 " (28.4 x 31.8 cm). National Gallery
of Art, Washington, (Kress Collection). The faux-marble frame
around the scene is original.

clothes on the rocky ground as he prepares to put on the
camePs skin he will wear in the wilderness. The almost
Greek beauty of the nude figure is in keeping with Ghib-
erti’s Isaac of the competition relief for the North Doors
of the Florentine Baptistery and the Christ of the Flagella-
tion (see figs. 7.3, 7.6). The fierce sunlight changes the
facets of the surging forms of the mountains to blue-white
and yellow-white. The same light reflects from the
rounded forms of the boy’s body and dwells on every
pearly stone.

Three other predella panels, illustrated to scale in figure
11.8, represent scenes from the legends of the other saints.
To the far left, the Stigmatization of St. Francis is set in a
landscape similar to that of the St. John the Baptist pre-
della panel. Here, however, the mountains are more varied
in color, perhaps to suggest the exotic landscape of La
Verna where the stigmatization took place. In contrast, the
miracle being performed by the Florentine bishop
St. Zenobius (fig. 11.11) is set in a crowded cityscape with
upper rooms supported on struts like those we have
already seen in a fresco by Masaccio (see fig 8.15). The
dramatic responses of the onlookers in this scene contrast
sharply with the calm serenity conveyed by the standing
saints above and the meditative interpretation of the adja-
cent Annunciation. In the final predella, the Martyrdom of
St. Lucy is silhouetted against a simple stone wall.

11.11. DOMENICO VENEZIANO . A Miracle of St. Zenobius,
from the predella of the St. Lucy altarpiece (see fig. 11.8).
c. 1445-47. Panel, IIV 4 x 12 3 /4" (28.6 x 32.5 cm). Fitzwilliam
Museum, Cambridge, England.

Andrea del Castagno

One of Domenico’s contemporaries in Florence was
Andrea del Castagno (1417/19-57). According to Vasari,
Castagno was a coarse and violent man who became so
jealous of Domenico’s skill at painting in oil in the Venet-
ian manner (though oil was not generally adopted in
Venice until about 1475) that he murdered him. Vasari
added that no one would have known who killed
Domenico if Castagno had not confessed on his deathbed.
This story blackened Castagno’s reputation until the nine-
teenth-century archivist Gaetano Milanesi discovered that
Castagno died four years before his supposed victim. Yet
with that much smoke there is usually some flame, and
Castagno may well have been a difficult individual. Cer-
tainly, the human dilemma he presents in his works con-
trasts vividly with the serene world painted by Domenico.
Andrea came from a village called Castagno (“Chestnut
Tree”) high in the Apennines, yet nature seldom appears in
his work. His interest is in the human figure and human
character; the types he prefers seem to be based on the
peasants and mountaineers of his Tuscan birthplace.
Castagno is one of the first Renaissance artists to demon-
strate an interest in capturing movement.

Castagno’s surviving masterpiece is his huge fresco of
the Last Supper and Scenes of the Passion for the convent

FLORENTINE PAINTING AT MID-CENTURY * 27 I

of Sant’Apollonia (figs. 11.1, 11.12). Because the nuns
were under clausura (they could have no visitors and the
convent was closed to all outsiders), the frescoes probably
became inaccessible to Castagno’s contemporaries as soon
as they were finished, and they escaped notice until the
kingdom of Italy expropriated the monasteries in the late
nineteenth century. As we saw earlier in Taddeo Gaddi’s
fresco (see fig. 3.31), the Last Supper was often chosen for
representation in refectories. The theme served to remind

the members of the community daily that Christ’s sacrifi-
cial self-perpetuation in the form of bread and wine at the
Mass was established at a ritual meal.

In accordance with the Tuscan visual tradition, Judas is
seated on our side of the table. He does not, however, dip
his hand into the dish with Christ, which was how most
earlier artists, including Taddeo Gaddi, had represented
the scene. Their source was either St. Matthew or St.
Mark, but Castagno followed the account written by

11.12. ANDREA DEL CASTAGNO. Detail of the Last Supper ( see fig. 11.1).

272

THE QUATTROCENTO

St. John, which includes Christ’s announcement that the
betrayer would be the apostle to whom he gave a piece of
bread dipped in wine (13:26). Castagno contrasts Christ’s
hand blessing the bread and wine with that of Judas
already holding the bread given him by Christ. Ludolph of
Saxony, a fourteenth-century theologian, wrote that at
this moment in St. John’s Gospel the Devil entered Judas.
Indeed, Castagno’s betrayer has assumed a diabolical
aspect, with hooked nose, jutting beard, and hornlike ears.
One story held that St. John fell asleep at the supper with
his head on Christ’s chest so that he could understand the
secrets held in Christ’s heart, which seems to be
how Castagno represents him. Christ gazes down toward
him while Peter looks at Christ with alarm, as if with
foreknowledge of his denial of Christ within the next
few hours.

Christ’s revelation that he would be betrayed, Ludolph
wrote, entered the heart of each apostle like a knife and
caused each to reflect on his inner life and eventual mar-
tyrdom. Here Andrew holds up a knife to the praying
Bartholomew, who would eventually be flayed alive. Next
to Peter, James, who would be beheaded, gazes fixedly at
the glass of wine he holds to his lips, as the locks of his hair
seem to start upward from his head. Thomas, who was to
receive the Virgin’s golden belt as she ascended to heaven
i see figs. 5.6, 7.16), looks sharply upward, in a daring
attempt at foreshortening. Turning to one another and
searching their individual souls, the apostles express their
consternation at the disclosure. Castagno, doubtless under
theological direction, visually unfolded the import of the
Last Supper, the Betrayal, and the Eucharist for the nuns
within a single image.

Castagno set the scene in a paneled chamber that seems
to be an independent construction, one story high and
roofed with Tuscan tiles, with its front wall removed as if
it were a stage set. This setting, open to the view of the
nuns, is cut off from the rest of the world by high brick
wails at either side. The room is on the ground floor, ignor-
ing the biblical text, which states that the event took place
in an “upper room.” Castagno’s illusionistic room is more
complex than we first assume. At first it seems square
because each side wall has the same number of marble
panels as the back wall, but the benches suggest that this
could not be the case. Counting the patterns in the frieze
and the ceiling tiles does not help resolve the visual
paradox, which adds to the intensity of the scene, as does
the recession of the red and white pavement in front. The
floor is painted as if it were just below our eye level, and
at close range its receding blocks, so convincing from a
distance, become a blur. The striking impression of three-
dimensional reality is, surprisingly, deliberately inaccurate.
Castagno did establish a consistent vanishing point for the

ceiling directly below the hands of St. John, but the orthog-
onals of the footrest do not recede to this point nor, for
that matter, to any common vanishing point. The orthogo-
nals of the frieze remain nearly parallel, and the depth of
the individual ceiling panels is identical from front to back,
with no diminution.

There may have been a reason for such departures from
Brunelleschi’s and Alberti’s rational perspective system on
the part of an artist familiar with its practice and theory. If
Castagno had used a consistent one-point perspective, he
would have restricted the observer to a single point in the
refectory; perhaps he intended instead that his illusion be
valid to every nun in the room. He did his best, therefore,
to achieve a visually and emotionally convincing reality by
other means. One of these is the lighting, which seems to
come from two windows substituted for marble panels on
the left, the same side as the real windows of the refectory.
This light emphasizes the broadly modeled features, sends
reflected lights into shadows, and models the sharply
defined figures and drapery. Strong light and vigorous
contours establish a sense of pictorial three-dimensionality
that seems to emulate sculptural prototypes at Orsan-
michele or the Campanile. In contrast to Castagno’s immo-
bile figures is the eruption of color in the painted marble
panel behind Christ. The surge and flow of this veining
reveals Castagno’s interest in the invention of abstract
patterns that could strengthen his narrative interpretation.

The dramas of betrayal, resignation, fear of death,
crushing grief, and hope of salvation that seem to be going
on within the souls of these apostles are revealed on
their faces — old and bearded, young and strong, handsome
or ugly, tormented or secure. Castagno has chosen to
emphasize emotional experience, and in this, as well as in
his emphasis on sharp detail, strong lighting effects, and
realistic types, his art foreshadows that of Caravaggio (see
fig. 20.58).

Castagno’s Last Supper was painted in thirty-two
sections, and perhaps within even fewer working days. He
began the figures with Andrew, at the right of center, and
worked toward the right, each day painting one figure.
Then, in a single day, he painted Christ and the head and
hands of Judas. In another day he painted John. He then
worked even more rapidly, for James and Peter were
painted in a single day, as were Thomas and Philip. Only
after the tablecloth was painted did he insert the body
of Judas. The harsh grandeur, astringent colors, and
powerful spatial illusion make this fresco one of the most
memorable of the many Quattrocento representations of
this theme.

A cycle of frescoes by Castagno of famous men and
women offer a sharp contrast to the Last Supper in content
and style. They were commissioned in 1448 to decorate the

FLORENTINE PAINTING AT MID-CENTURY * 2 73

11.13. ANDREA DEL CASTAGNO. The Famous Men and Women Cycle . c. 1448-49. Originally in the loggia of the Villa Carducci, Legnaia.
Reconstruction by Lew Minter. Fresco, width of loggia, approximately 50' (15.5 m). Commissioned by Filippo Carducci. 1. Eve; 2. Madonna
and Child (over the door; largely lost); 3. Adam (largely lost); 4. Pippo Spano (see fig. 11.14); 5. Farinata degli Uberti; 6. Niccold Acciaioli;

7. Cumaean Sibyl (see fig. 11.15); 8. Queen Esther, 9. Queen Tomyris ; 10. Dante; 11. Petrarch; 12. Boccaccio (not shown in reconstruction).

loggia of a villa outside Florence (fig. 11.13). Cycles of
famous historical personages were a frequent decoration
for Italian Quattrocento villas and palaces, although few
survive; such figures were intended to awaken emotions
ranging from civic pride to delight in the erudition of
observer and patron. The nine figures from the long wall
of the Villa Carducci have been detached, while frescoes of
Adam and Eve and the Virgin and Child on one end wall
remain in poor condition in situ. No one knows what
might have gone on the other end wall. Our reconstruction
gives some sense of the frescoes as they might have looked
in the loggia originally. The unity of Castagno’s program
is evident. The detached sections show three Florentine
military leaders (Pippo Spano, Farinata degli Uberti, and

Niccold Acciaioli), three legendary women (the Cumaean
Sibyl, Queen Esther, and Queen Tomyris), and three Flo-
rentine literary figures (Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio).
The figures stand against varied backgrounds of simulated
marble, granite, or porphyry.

Pippo Spano (fig. 11.14), whose real name was Filippo
Scolari, was a Florentine soldier of fortune in the service of
the king of Hungary. As we have seen, Masolino accom-
panied him to Hungary (see p. 207), and his will endowed
the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Florence (see fig.
6.20). Pippo died in Hungary shortly after Castagno’s
birth, so it is unlikely that Castagno’s figure is a portrait
unless the artist was supplied with a death mask or another
likeness. In any case, it is a vivid image of a swashbuckling

2 7 4

THE QUATTROCENTO

11.14, 11.15. ANDREA DEL CASTAGNO. Pippo Spano (left) and Cumaean Sibyl (right), from the Famous Men and Women Cycle (see fig.
11.13). Frescoes, each 8' x 5'5" (2.5 x 1.54 m). Uffizi Gallery, Florence. In the figure of Pippo Spano , Castagno added blue shadows in fresco
secco to the short tunic; these have peeled off, leaving the white plaster and causing an apparent reversal of lights and darks.

condottiere standing with feet apart, grasping a huge
sword, and glaring at potential enemies. The Cumaean
Sibyl (fig. 11.15) is a tall, athletic, and elegant woman
holding a book and pointing heavenward. Because her rev-
elations were thought to predict the coming of Christ, she
looks toward the Madonna and Child on the end wall.

While Castagno’s figures here are strong and wiry like
those in the Last Supper , a more diffused light now
replaces the strong shadows and harsh modeling seen
there. A system of delicately painted lines indicates details
of garments and ornament, locks of hair, and even individ-
ual hairs in the beard and eyelashes. The different style
may have seemed appropriate for the intimacy of the villa
setting. Here too the perspective could not possibly be

unified; a consistent one-point perspective would have
looked incorrect except from a single spot in the loggia.
But Castagno made every effort to make his figures and
scenes palpable. The feet, for example, overlap the ledges
on which the figures stand and seem to project into the
space of the room, while the folds of the hems of the gar-
ments, seen from below, recede convincingly into depth.

The shape of Castagno’s Triumph of David (fig. 11.16)
derives from its function as a parade shield, presumably
for ceremonial use in processions and other civic and
familial festivities. In contrast to Donatello’s static figures
of David (see figs. 7.11, 10.22), Castagno’s wiry youth
runs, swinging his sling in one hand and extending his
other to help guide the trajectory of the stone. Goliath’s

FLORENTINE PAINTING AT MID-CENTURY

2-75

11.16. ANDREA DEL CASTAGNO. The Triumph of David, a
parade shield . c. 1450-55. Tempera on leather on poplar, height
45 1 /z" (1.155 m). National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
(Widener Collection).

decapitated head lies at his feet. The flutter of his garments
in the air and the tense muscles of his legs give a strong
sense of arrested movement. This is one of the first figures
of the Renaissance to be shown in action, and so impres-
sive is its naturalism that it is a surprise to learn that the
stance was probably suggested by an ancient Greek
statue — part of a group representing Niobe and her dying
children now in the Uffizi. The sculptors of the early
decades of the Quattrocento had turned to classical
antiquity for their philosopher-saints and for their rela-
tively quiet male and female nudes. Castagno now finds
inspiration in ancient art for a pose that demands the total

resources of the body and an expression that conveys
David’s fear of his gigantic enemy. Despite the patterned
hair, stylized clouds, and still-Gothic landscape forms,
Castagno’s interest in physical movement represents a
giant step along the road later taken by Antonio del
Pollaiuolo, Leonardo, Michelangelo, and, eventually, the
artists of the Baroque era. At the same time, however, it is
clear that he has not forgotten Donatello, whose works
provided models for Goliath’s severed head.

The Vision of St. Jerome (fig. 11.17) was frescoed above
an altar at the Church of Santissima Annunziata, Florence.
Jerome was often represented as a theologian working in a

11.17. ANDREA DEL CASTAGNO. The Vision of St. Jerome, c. 1454-55. Fresco, 9' 9" x 5 TO" (3 x 1.8 m). It SS. Annunziata, Florence.
Commissioned by Girolamo dei Corboli.

276 •

THE QUATTROCENTO

FLORENTINE PAINTING AT MID-CENTURY

277

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11.18. ANDREA DEL CASTAGNO. Niccold da Tolentino.
1455-56. Fresco transferred to canvas, 27'4" x 16'9" (8.3 x 5.1 m).
Cathedral, Florence. Commissioned by the Opera del Duomo,
Florence.

Ghost in the form of a dove — are so sharply foreshortened
that they seem about to glide right out of the picture. The
seraphim that cover the lower part of Christ’s body were
added a secco and have partially peeled away. Perhaps
Castagno’s foreshortened Trinity offended the clergy or the
patron, who then demanded this “correction.” Yet we still
look down on the top of the crossbar, down on Christ’s
head (crowned with the rope of flagellation, rather than
with thorns), down even on his gold halo. The rope may
have been included because the patron, Girolamo (Jerome)
dei Corboli, belonged to a community of flagellants. One
hardly knows whether to be more astonished by the tor-
tured face of the saint, with its knotty features, by the
intensity of his inner convulsion, or by the gloomy figure
of God the Father. Blood runs from the gashes in Jerome’s
chest, drips from the rock he holds, and oozes from the
pierced side of Christ.

Castagno’s equestrian Niccold da Tolentino (fig. 11.18)
was commissioned as a pendant to Uccello’s Sir John
Hawkwood ; it too was detached and is also now hung too
low and with an inappropriate frame. Uccello had already
painted Niccolo in the Battle of San Romano (see fig.
11.5), and it is not clear why he was not chosen to paint
the second simulated statue for the cathedral. In any case,
a comparison between the two monuments is inevitable.
The simple harmony of Uccello’s earlier image is gone;
perhaps such qualities were no longer possible in the
1450s. Characteristically for Castagno, the perspective
scheme has no single point of view. Harsh contrasts
between light and shadow throw into relief the simulated
marble of the tomb, its giant balusters, inscriptions, and
shell, and the nude youths who hold shields bearing the
devices of Niccold and the Florentine Republic. The con-
voluted shapes of the horse’s muscles, head, and tail and
of the rider’s cloak produce an effect of movement utterly
different from the static geometry of Uccello’s work.
Castagno’s illusion of marble substitutes earth tones for
the violet and green used by Uccello to simulate bronze.

Castagno’s wife died in August 1457 in one of the recur-
rent plagues and the artist himself died eleven days later.
They were buried, apparently in a mass grave, at Santa
Maria Nuova.

study on his translation of the Scriptures (see fig. 15.34),
but here Castagno represents him stripped to his under-
garment and beating his breast with a rock. The setting —
looking like any barren hill to the north of Florence — is
meant to suggest the Egyptian desert. Jerome’s cardinal’s
hat rests at his feet. Flanking him are St. Paola and her
daughter St. Eustochium, two of his close followers. The
Trinity above — the Father holding the Son, and the Holy

Piero della Francesca

The artist who seems to fulfill the Albertian ideal of absolute
and perfect painting in nearly every respect is Piero
della Francesca (c. 1415-1492). He was not a Florentine,
and, except for occasional visits there, he lived in Borgo
Sansepolcro, a Tuscan market town then still a possession
of the papal states. Piero’s family owned a wholesale
leather business, a dyeing establishment, houses, and farms.

278

THE QUATTROCENTO

11.19. PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA. Baptism of Christ. Late 1440s-50s. Panel, 66 x 45 3 /4 M (1.67 x 1.16 m). National
Gallery, London. Commissioned by a member of the Graziani family and by the Opera of the Pieve of San Giovanni, Borgo
Sansepolcro. This was the central panel of an altarpiece; the side panels and predella were painted later by the Sienese artist
Matteo di Giovanni.

FLORENTINE PAINTING AT MID-CENTURY

2 7 9

In the nineteenth century, Piero’s art was treated as an
oddity, of interest only to a few scholars who found in it
little merit and who saw the artist as standing apart from
the mainstream of the Renaissance. Only a new apprecia-
tion of form for form’s sake in the wake of the revolution-
ary art of Cezanne and the Cubists led to a fuller
understanding of Piero’s accomplishments.

The first dated reference to Piero is in 1439, when he
was a modestly paid assistant of Domenico Veneziano
working on now-lost frescoes in Florence. In 1442 Piero
became a member of the Priori (town council) of Borgo
Sansepolcro, an office he retained for the rest of his life.
This rustic town, set in the barren foothills of the Apen-
nines, may have offered the atmosphere of dignity and
calm so evident in Piero’s art. His stay in Florence helped
him to develop the technical resources, the knowledge of
perspective theory, and the particular form, light, and
color evident in his work. He must have studied the paint-
ings of Masaccio and, since he seems to have known the
art of Castagno, he must have returned to Florence. He
may have worked with Domenico again, at Loreto. But in
the isolation of Borgo Sansepolcro, he engaged with a
series of problems on the subject that seems to have con-
cerned him most: the visual unity of the picture.

In Piero’s Baptism of Christ (fig. 11.19), the beauty of
the landscape setting reveals his command of the develop-
ments in naturalism seen earlier in Florentine art; one is
reminded of Fra Angelico’s Descent from the Cross (see fig.
9.2). Christ stands in a glassy stream under a well-pruned
tree in a Tuscan landscape; he is up to his ankles in water
so clear we can see stones on the bottom. Holding a simple
earthenware bowl, St. John steps from the bank to pour
water over Christ’s head. The three angels recall the classi-
cism and naturalism of the singing boys on Luca della
Robbia’s Cantoria (see figs. 10.16-10.17). The mood of
anticipation is in part the result of the stillness of the
figures and the balance of the flanking profiles of the
Baptist and the angel on the left.

Piero developed a visual relationship between Christ’s legs
and the cylindrical tree trunk; both seem equally rooted in
the earth. In the same way, the foreshortened dove (symbol
of the Holy Spirit) and the white clouds are so similar in
shape that we have to look a second time to distinguish them.
There is no representation of God the Father, not even the
hand of God that is sometimes shown in this scene; appar-
ently the blue sky will do. It might be said that Piero was
a nature poet who saw revelations or relationships in
simple things — the Son in a tree, the Holy Spirit in a cloud,
the Father in the sky. Piero’s color is slightly bleached,
similar to the color in his own countryside, where intense
light will not permit bright colors to survive. This white
glare models both the smooth forms of Christ’s torso,

revealing his thighs through the translucent loincloth, and
the figure of a man in the middle distance. As he pulls his
garment over his head in preparation for baptism, the
man’s arms are visible through the white linen.

Beyond the second curve of the stream stand bearded
figures wearing bright robes and towering headdresses.
They and the terraced hill behind them are reflected in the
water, which is as clear as it is bright. Between Christ’s hip
and the tree trunk we are offered a glimpse of Sansepolcro,
its towers touched by light, and of the straight road that
runs toward the town of Anghiari, site of the famous battle
later painted by Leonardo (see fig. 16.30). Piero has
mastered Domenico Veneziano’s doctrine of light, using
a single brushstroke to represent the sparkle of light on
an object, and painting background details freely and
without line.

Piero’s Resurrection (fig. 11.20) was painted for the
Town Hall of Borgo Sansepolcro and moved from an
adjoining room to its present position in the early sixteenth
century; the di sotto in sit (looking up from below) view-
point of the enframing columns suggests that it was origi-
nally painted rather high on the wall. The theme was
appropriate because the tomb of Christ was the symbol
of Sansepolcro (which means “Holy Sepulcher”) and
appeared on its coat of arms. Piero condensed the scene to
its essentials and represented the Resurrection not as a his-
torical event — it is nowhere described in the Gospels — but
as a timeless truth upon which one could meditate on any
rocky hillside above Sansepolcro.

Christ stands with one foot on the edge of the sarcoph-
agus. One hand rests on his knee while the other grasps the
banner of triumph. A cloak leaves his right side bare to
reveal the spear wound. The classical torso is modeled by
the dawn light coming from the left. Above his pillarlike
throat, Christ’s face is firmly projected. The curving lips
seem to have been carved in pale stone, and his compelling,
wide-open eyes engage ours, as if challenging us to return
his stare. In front of the tomb, the watchers sleep fitfully;
according to Vasari, the second from the left is Piero’s self-
portrait. The large eye sockets, broad cheekbones, square
jaw, and firm chin recall those seen in Etruscan sculpture —
features still visible in the inhabitants of Tuscan villages.

Significantly, the trees on the left are barren while those
on the right are in full leaf. On his way to Calvary, Christ
had said, “If they do these things in a green tree, what
shall be done in the dry?” (Luke 23:31), meaning, “If
they do this to me while I am still alive, what will they
do when I am dead?” Christ’s analogy between green and
withered trees was also a reference to the Tree of the
Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree of Life, which,
according to the account in Genesis, stood together in the
Garden of Eden.

280

THE QUATTROCENTO

11.20. PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA. Resurrection, c . 1458. Fresco, 7'5" x 6 ' 6 V 2 " (2.25 x2 m). Museo Civico (originally the Town Hall),
Sansepolcro. Commissioned by the chief magistrates of Sansepolcro for their state chamber.

FLORENTINE PAINTING AT MID-CENTURY

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Left: 11.21. PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA. Fresco cycle of the Legend of the True Cross. 1450s; the cycle was begun in the late 1440s and
completed by 1465; most of the paintings were probably executed in the early to mid- 145 Os. S. Francesco, Arezzo. The commission, from
members of the Bacci family, had originally been given to one of the last surviving painters in the Gothic tradition, Bicci di Lorenzo, but he left
Arezzo around 1447 after completing the Four Evangelists in the vault and the Last Judgment on the triumphal arch. The thirteenth-century
Crucifix with St Francis was only recently hung over the high altar of the church.

Above : 11.22. Iconographic diagram of the program of Piero della Francesca’s Legend of the True Cross frescoes at the S. Francesco, Arezzo.
Diagram by Sarah Cameron Loyd.

The Resurrection contains evidence of Piero’s slow tech-
nical procedures. Unlike Castagno, he needed a working
day for each face and a day for the torso, neck, and right
arm of Christ. He seems to have spent more than a decade
on his only major fresco cycle, at San Francesco in Arezzo
(figs. 11.21-11.22). Piero often applied wet cloths to the
plaster at night so that he could work two days on a single
section. A study of the giornate in the chancel at San
Francesco indicates that the actual painting could have

been completed within two years. The preliminary calcula-
tions, working drawings, and cartoons may have required
more time than the actual painting. Piero had at least two
assistants, but the designs are all his own and he also
painted all the principal figures. Exactly why the cycle
took so many years to finish is uncertain.

The subject, the Legend of the True Cross, is a medieval
fabrication of fantastic complexity. Piero was certainly
familiar with Agnolo Gaddi’s cycle on the same theme at

Z 8 3

FLORENTINE PAINTING AT MID-CENTURY *

Santa Croce in Florence (see figs. 3.19, 5.11). The tale
begins with the final illness of Adam, who, an angel tells
his son Seth, can be cured only by a branch from the Tree
of the Knowledge of Good and Evil from which Eve took
the apple. Seth returns from Eden to find Adam already
dead, but the branch is planted on his grave, where it takes
root and flourishes. Later, King Solomon desires to use a
beam from this tree in the construction of his palace, but it
proves too large and is instead placed bridging a brook.
The queen of Sheba, gifted with prophecy, discovers it on
her trip to Solomon’s court and recognizes that it will serve
to produce a cross on which the greatest of kings will hang.
Kneeling, she worships it before proceeding onward to tell
King Solomon, who has it buried deep in the earth.

The Crucifixion was not represented by Piero, appar-
ently because it was commemorated in the Mass celebrated
at the altar in the chapel. Piero’s depiction shifts to the
period after the Crucifixion, to the struggle between the
rival emperors Constantine and Maxentius. An angel
appears to Constantine in a dream, saying, “In this sign
thou shalt conquer.” Protected by his faith in the cross,
Constantine vanquishes Maxentius at the Milvian Bridge.
Helena, Constantine’s mother, sets out to find the True
Cross, which — along with those of the two thieves — was
buried after the Crucifixion. The person who knows the
location reveals it only after he has been lowered into a
dry well and starved. When the three crosses are dug up,

they show no external differences and the True Cross
cannot be identified. Luckily a funeral procession is
passing by, and when the crosses are held over the corpse,
only the True Cross revives him. Later, the True Cross falls
into the hands of the Persian emperor Chosroes, who
attaches it to his throne, but the Byzantine emperor Hera-
clius defeats Chosroes in battle and brings the cross in
triumph back to Jerusalem.

Piero’s sense of order was equal to the challenges of this
complex program, and he rearranged episodes to make
analogous scenes face each other. For example, Piero
paired on facing walls the scenes dominated by women
(the queen of Sheba and the empress Helena; figs.
11.23-11.24) and those of battles won by emperors (see
figs. 11.25-11.26), while on either side of the window he
placed visions of the cross (see figs. 11.27-11.28). As a
result, the final cycle forms a visual harmony rather than a
temporal sequence, although the order of the scenes has
also been related to the demands of Franciscan liturgy.

Piero divided the story of the queen of Sheba (fig. 11.23)
into two episodes: at the left, the queen worships the wood
of the cross; at the right she is received at Solomon’s
palace. In the first episode horses are shown foreshortened
from front and rear in the manner of Gentile da Fabriano
and Masaccio (see figs. 8.2, 8.19). In the foreground the
beam of the True Cross is placed across a brook that runs
past the palace. The shadow of the kneeling queen that

11.23. PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA. Discovery of the Wood of the True Cross and Meeting of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, from the
Legend of the True Cross. 1450s. 11'8" x 24'6" (3.56 x 7.47 m). The second face from the left in the scene of the Meeting , staring directly at the
spectator, is probably Piero's self-portrait.

284

THE QUATTROCENTO

falls across the beam follows the direction of the light from
the actual window of the chancel. Her garments and those
of her ladies-in-waiting are relatively plain, while their hair
is simply dressed and they wear few jewels. The dignity of
these stately women is due not only to the carriage of their
heads, the coolness of their gaze, and the authority of their
gestures, but also to the simplicity of Piero’s forms and
lines. The heads with their plucked foreheads and the long
necks resemble perfect geometric forms, while the folds of
the cloaks descend in grand parabolic curves.

The second episode takes place in the classical architec-
ture of Solomon’s palace, and here we must discuss the
relation of Piero della Francesca to Leonbattista Alberti.
The proportions of the composite order of Piero’s portico
recall those of Alberti’s Malatesta Temple at Rimini (see
fig. 10.4), where Piero had painted a frescoed portrait of
Sigismondo Malatesta in Alberti’s temple in 1451. He
may also have absorbed Alberti’s perspective doctrine in
Florence, and many years later Piero wrote the first
Renaissance treatise devoted exclusively to perspective
see p. 293).

Piero has set his vanishing point low, on a level with the
eyes of the kneeling queen of the first episode; it is centered
just outside the portico, so that some of the capitals are
visible along the profile of the first column. Within the
portico, we see the same queen and ladies, their heads
drawn from the same cartoons but now reversed, a

technique employed by Piero to achieve balance and regu-
larity. A sumptuously dressed Solomon, whose gold-bro-
caded ceremonial robe was painted a secco and has for the
most part peeled away, receives them.

In the companion piece on the opposite wall (fig. 11.24),
there are again two episodes: at the left is the Invention of
the True Cross (as the cross’s discovery is generally enti-
tled), in which Empress Helena — her face line for line the
same as that of the queen of Sheba — directs the excavation
of the crosses. This takes place outside the gates of
Jerusalem, which is recognizable as a portrait of Arezzo;
the cathedral can be distinguished, and — at the extreme
right — the side of San Francesco itself.

The Recognition of the True Cross to the right is domi-
nated by a remarkable design for a Renaissance church
facade. What makes this surprising is that Piero could not
have seen a single completed Renaissance church facade.
Nonetheless, Alberti’s ideas are evident in Piero’s creation,
which is divided into rectangular, circular, and semicircular
areas, with the arches supported on piers. There is a
dichotomy between the simplicity of the design and the
veined marbles that form the ornamentation. Piero is also
aware of the distinctions between historical styles for,
above a street bordered with Tuscan houses, are a
Romanesque campanile , two medieval house-towers, and
a dome culminating in a circular temple-lantern based on
Brunelleschi’s lantern for his Sacristy at San Lorenzo in

11.24. PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA. Invention of the True Cross and Recognition of the True Cross , from the Legend of the True Cross.
1450s. ir8" x 24'6" (3.56 x 7.47 m).

FLORENTINE PAINTING AT MID-CENTURY * 285

11.25. PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA. Battle of Constantine and Maxentius^ from the Legend of the True Cross. 1450s.
10'9" x25T" (3.29 x 7.64 m).

Florence (see fig. 6.16). In front of these disparate yet
harmonious architectural forms, Piero has placed his
kneeling figures, while the cross is projected toward us
above the brilliantly lit torso of the man brought back to
life by its power.

In Piero’s solemn battle scenes, the realities of conflict,
defeat, and death are deeply felt. At the same time, he
chose to contrast the battle scenes sharply: while Constan-
tine defeated Maxentius through the cross alone (fig.
11.25), Heraclius defeated Chosroes in hand-to-hand
combat (fig. 11.26). In the damaged Battle of Constantine
and Maxentius , Piero depicted the army of Constantine
advancing from the left while at the right Maxentius and
his troops are in rout. If Piero had painted the Tiber —
where the battle took place — at its proper scale, he would
have had to reduce the figures to miniature size; instead he
inserted a symbolic river, painting it as the narrow upper
Tiber that flows by Sansepolcro, mirroring trees and farm-
houses and providing a haven for three white ducks. His
horses approach the edge, stare at the water, and paw the
air while — against the blue morning sky — Constantine
holds a tiny white cross. Patterns are created by the cylin-
drical forms of the horses’ legs and by the lances against
the sky. While the banners of the defeated army, identified
by dragons and Moors’ heads, are in disarray, the imperial
eagle on its yellow banner floats triumphantly over
Constantine’s army.

Constantine wears a sharp-visored hat and bears the
features of the Byzantine emperor John Palaeologus, the

penultimate successor of Constantine, whom Piero must
have seen in Florence in 1439. The emperor on his white
horse is overlapped by a figure in armor so that we see only
his head in profile and his outstretched hand. Piero painted
armor as surfaces of polished steel that capture the
morning light.

For these battle scenes Piero chose a point of view level
with the riders’ feet, so that we look slightly upward to the
belly of the rearing horse at the left. The horse is fore-
shortened and seems to look at us as his rider tries to
control him. This device, coupled with the roundness of
the modeling throughout, creates an illusion of depth that
helps break up the procession of equestrian figures across
the foreground.

The Battle of Heraclius and Chosroes has little of the
luminary magic of the Battle of Constantine and Maxen-
tius , perhaps because it is situated on a wall that never
receives direct light. Piero includes no landscape, concen-
trating instead on the battle. He may have been guided in
part by Roman battle sarcophagi, seen in Florence and
Pisa, in which the compositional field is filled with inter-
woven figures in conflict; the motif of the horse rearing
over a fallen enemy is common in Roman sculpture. As
mentioned above (see p. 280), one of the most celebrated
military encounters of Piero’s day, the Battle of Anghiari,
took place within sight of Borgo Sansepolcro in 1440. By
that year Piero may have returned to his birthplace; in
any case, he could hardly have avoided hearing eyewitness
accounts of the struggle.

286

THE QUATTROCENTO

11.26. PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA. Battle ofHeraclius and Chosroes, from the Legend of the True Cross. 1450s.
10'9" x 24'6" {3.29 x 7.47 m).

In his depiction of this episode Piero represented the
grim mechanics of slaughter: there are no beautiful pat-
terns, no lovely light, and the armor has little allure. The
legs of horses and people fill the lower part of the compo-
sition; above, masses of steel and flesh collide. There are
incidents of brutality, as when a soldier near the throne
jabs his dagger into the throat of another, or of pathos, as
we watch the dying figure below the rearing horse. The
dethroned monarch on the far right awaits the execu-
tioner’s sword. Above him the True Cross is blasphe-
mously incorporated into his throne.

Some scholars have tried to show that the Annunciation
(fig. 11.27), at the lower left of the chancel window, is
really a vision of Empress Helena; others have claimed that
the scene is out of place in the True Cross Legend and was
inserted later. It can be argued, however, that certain
aspects of the subject, as well as its relevance to the legend,
are clarified by St. Antoninus. To the right is the open door
of Mary’s bedchamber, complete with a bed decorated
with complex intar sia; to the left is the porta clausa.
Antoninus suggested that the cross was mystically identi-
fied with the porta clausa , arguing that the porta clausa
was the way to salvation and that when Christ said,
“Narrow is the gate and straight the way that leads unto
salvation,” he meant the cross. To Antoninus the cross was
therefore already symbolically present at the Annuncia-
tion. Perhaps Piero hints at this, for the picture seems to be
based on a cruciform scheme. Instead of the customary lily,
Gabriel holds a palm, symbol of eternal life. The figure of

Mary seems to be illuminated by light from the real
window of the chancel. In this simple composition, with
its shades of rose, blue, and white in combination with the
richness of the veined marble, Piero has expressed
the mystery of Christianity as revealed by the miracle
of light.

To the right of the window, the cross makes Constantine
emperor, also through light. The Vision of Constantine
(fig. 11.28) has its ancestry in the luminary revelations of
Taddeo Gaddi and Gentile da Fabriano (see figs. 3.30, 8.3).
Constantine’s tent fills the scene, and behind it stand
others, two of which are touched by moonlight. The parted
curtains show the emperor asleep in his bed, on the base of
which sits a sleepy servant. A guard armed with a lance looks
toward Constantine; another looks outward. An angel
appears over the group, flying downward, his right shoul-
der obscuring his head, and his extended right arm holding
a tiny golden cross. This must be the source for the light that
illuminates the figures and the tent and even shines through
the feathers of the angel’s wing. No one seems to notice
this miraculous radiance. As in the Annunciation , the cross
is also implicit in the picture’s construction, and the shapes
of the two scenes subtly correspond, pillar for pillar, hori-
zontal for horizontal. Male and female, day and night, the
cycle comes in these last two scenes to its fulfillment.

Evidence suggests that Piero traveled widely. He seems
to have worked in Ferrara at the court of the Este dukes,
and he certainly left a mark on the Ferrarese school. In
1459 he painted a fresco (now lost) in the Vatican, and he

FLORENTINE PAINTING AT MID-CENTURY * 287

11.27, 11.28. PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA. Annunciation (left) and Vision of Constantine (right), from the Legend of the True Cross. 1450s.
10'9" x 6'4" (3.29 x 1.93 m) and 10'9" x6’3" (3.29 x 1.9 m).

may have visited Rome earlier. But Piero’s strongest ties
outside Sansepolcro were with the neighboring mountain
principality of Urbino, then ruled by Count Federico da
Montefeltro, who was elevated to duke in 1474. Urbino’s
territory was not rich in resources and the count’s revenues
were small, but he came from a family of long military
traditions. His talents were valued by the popes, who made
him captain general of the Roman Church and relied on
his aid in warfare against rebels, including Sigismondo
Malatesta. Young men came from as far away as England
to Federico’s palace to study the art of war and to acquaint
themselves with the principles of noble conduct and
gentlemanly behavior. Under his rule, Urbino became less
a second Sparta, as might have been expected, than a tiny

Athens. Federico was a scholar and bibliophile who
surrounded himself with humanists, philosophers, poets,
and artists, and under his successors the cultural pre-
eminence of Urbino lasted well into the seventeenth
century. Federico’s palace, a brilliant example of Renais-
sance architecture (see fig. 14.29), contained many impor-
tant works of art.

Piero’s Flagellation of Christ (fig. 11.29) is now in
Urbino but there is no evidence that it was painted for Fed-
erico or any other citizen of the city. The original meaning
and function of this compelling painting remain mysteri-
ous; more than thirty different interpretations have been
published, but none has been accepted by a large number
of scholars.

288

THE QUATTROCENTO

The setting is the portico of Pontius Pilate’s palace in
Jerusalem, and Piero seems to have based details of his
setting on descriptions of the palace and surrounding
>tructures in Jerusalem. What has perplexed many
observers is the placing of Christ and his tormentors at a
distance, while three large figures who seem to have no
involvement with what is going on in the other half of the
picture dominate the foreground. Crucial is the vanished
inscription “Convenerunt in unum” (“They came together as
One”), which was recorded in the early nineteenth century
as being near the group of three figures or on the frame.
The words appear in Psalm 2:2 and are quoted in a slight
variation in Acts 4:26: “The kings of the earth stood up,
and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and
against his Christ.” In fifteenth-century breviaries, where
this verse is one of the Antiphons read on Good Friday, it
' followed by a passage from Acts 4:27 that refers to the

trial of Jesus and names both Fferod and Pilate. It has often
been suggested that Piero’s picture refers allegorically to
the capture of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453 or, if
the painting is slightly earlier, to the threat of that capture
in the years preceding the city’s fall. The capture of Con-
stantinople, a city founded more than a millennium earlier
by the Roman emperor who had first allowed the free
practice of Christianity, was seen as a great blow to the
Church; because theologians often referred to the Church
as the mystical body of Christ, the loss of Constantinople
could easily be symbolized by the Flagellation.

An old tradition in Urbino identified the youthful, bare-
foot figure in the group on the right, clothed only in a plain
red garment, as Duke Oddantonio, Federico’s half-brother,
who wars murdered in his nightshirt. The figure has also
been identified as a wingless angels The figure at the right
has the red mantle of a nobleman thrown over his right

1 1.29. PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA. F lagellation of Christ. 1450s(?}. Panel, 23 V 4 x 32" {60 x 80 cm). Galleria Nazionale dell e Marche,
Palazzo Ducale, Urbino.

FLORENTINE PAINTING AT MID-CENTURY * 289

shoulder and may be a portrait of Duke Guidantonio,
father of Federico and Oddantonio; other interpretations
identify him as Francesco Sforza or Ludovico II Gonzaga.
Pilate, who observes the torture from his throne, is thought
to be a portrait of Sultan Mehmet II, who conquered Con-
stantinople (see fig. 15.33). In all likelihood, then, the
remaining man in the foreground is a portrait as well.
Bearded in the Byzantine fashion, he also wears a Byzan-
tine hat. He gazes earnestly outward, and his mouth is
open in speech as he gestures to his two companions. We
are led to conclude that both the suffering of Christ, placed
as deep in space as the Flagellation is remote in time, and
the contemporary events it symbolizes are the subject of his
discourse. Perhaps the speaker was a Greek scholar at the
court of Urbino who is here expounding the meaning of
the Flagellation in a contemporary context.

Deep in the portico Christ stands calmly, awaiting the
blows about to fall on him from men in Turkish dress. He
is bound to a column surmounted by a golden sculpture of
a nude man, which has been identified as an allegorical
figure representing the sun, one of the principal monu-
ments of Constantinople; if this identification is correct, its
presence would also suggest the idolatry of those who are
persecuting Christ. In its left hand the figure holds what
seems to be a colossal pearl. This unexpected and unex-
plained form seems to be providing the light illuminating
the ceiling above Christ. If Federico was the patron, the
picture may have been intended to embody his desire to
serve as captain general of the forces of the Church in lib-
erating the Holy Land and Constantinople, the holy city of
the East, and to earn the ducal mantle of his predecessors.

The architectural setting has been constructed with such
accuracy that modern scholars have been able to play Piero’s
perspective backward, so to speak, and reconstruct the
ground plan of the marble floor. Not surprisingly, this
exercise has demonstrated that Piero organized his spatial
illusion using precise mathematical principles. The orthog-
onals are projected from divisions in the base line, as
Alberti suggested, but Piero has intentionally placed the
point of view slightly below the figures’ hips rather than at
eye level, as Alberti recommended. As a consequence, the
foreground figures loom grandly and their dialogue becomes
more important. The architectural details have been artic-
ulated with even greater refinement than those in the
frescoes at Arezzo. The steps visible behind Pilate surely
represent the staircase used by Christ in Pilate’s palace;
what was believed to be this staircase was later brought to
Rome for veneration, where it is known as the Scala Santa.

Both outside and inside the portico, Piero’s sunlight
reflects from the snowy marbles, penetrates the deep-toned
slabs of onyx and porphyry, and creates tones of blue and
rose, red and gold, that suffuse the whites in the indirect

illumination of the shelter. Lavenders and blues make up
the shadows in the white garments of the turbaned man
who stands with his back to us. All in all, the interlocking
web of form, space, light, and color represents Piero’s most
nearly perfect single achievement. If the Albertian ideal of
“absolute and perfect painting” could be embodied in a
single picture, this would be an appropriate candidate.
Piero signed the panel conspicuously, but why he chose the
lowest step of Pilate’s throne for the signature is uncertain.
The enigma of this unusual painting, with its combination
of subordinate narrative scene and foreground dialogue,
will undoubtedly continue to perplex scholars.

In July 1472, Federico’s wife Battista Sforza, who had
governed Urbino capably during his frequent absences,
died in her twenty-sixth year, six months after the birth of
her ninth child and first son, Federico’s long-expected heir,
Guidobaldo. Federico stopped all work on his palace and
began construction of the church of San Bernardino across
the valley from Urbino, a structure that is visible in the
background of Raphael’s Madonna (see fig. 16.48). For this
church he commissioned Piero to paint a Madonna and
Child with Saints (fig. 11.30). The Albertian setting is bril-
liantly projected; the picture was probably intended to have
a marble frame with matching architectural membering.
On the right kneels Federico, wearing a suit of armor from
which he has removed helmet and gauntlets, and behind him
stands his patron saint, John the Evangelist, but the place
before St. John the Baptist on the left, where Battista Sforza
should be kneeling, is evocatively vacant. The rose and
gold brocade of the Virgin’s tunic is repeated in Federico’s
cape, and her blue mantle is decorated with pearls painted
with almost Flemish detail. From the shell of the apse, half
in shadow and half in light, hangs an egg suspended by a
silver cord. Throughout the picture, stillness reigns.

So exact is Piero’s perspective that the size of the egg can
be measured, revealing that it is an ostrich egg. Such eggs
often hung over altars dedicated to the Virgin — one still
hangs in the Baptistery of Florence, and others appear in
works by Giovanni Bellini and Andrea Mantegna (see figs.
15.1, 15.19) — for it was believed that the ostrich let her
egg hatch in the sunlight without brooding it herself and
thus, following medieval logic, the ostrich egg became a
symbol of the Virgin Birth. It was also believed that the
ostrich subsisted on a diet of nails, nuts, bolts, screws, and
other hardware appropriate for a soldier, and it therefore
appeared on Federico’s coat of arms. Finally, the ostrich
was an absent mother, and therefore a symbol of the
deceased Battista.

The backs of Piero’s portraits of Federico and Battista
(fig. 11.31) are painted with allegories of triumphs (fig.
11.32) and humanist texts that extol their virtues; unfor-
tunately no evidence survives to suggest how double-sided

290

THE QUATTROCENTO

11.30. PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA. Madonna and Child with Saints . Mid-1470s. Panel, 98 x 67" (2.48 x 1.7 m). Brera Gallery, Milan.
Commissioned by Federico da Montefeltro for S. Bernardino, Urbino.

portraits such as these might have been displayed (the
current frame is not the original). The ducal mantle worn
by Federico in the triumph scene seems to date the panels
after September 1474, when he was elevated to his long-
desired rank (he does not wear the mantle in the Madonna
and Child with Saints ), but by that date Battista had been
dead for more than two years. Both Piero and Francesco
Laurana, who created a bust of Battista at about this same
time (see fig. 14.28), must have worked from the still-
extant death mask.

Motionless and with chins silhouetted against the sky
above the horizon, the portrait heads create an effect of
grandeur. Piero’s cool light plays full on the pale skin of
Battista, but leaves that of Federico somewhat in shadow.
Federico’s profile, disfigured by a sword blow in a tourna-
ment that cost him his right eye and the bridge of his nose,
was done using the same cartoon as the portrait in the
Madonna. His olive skin is set against Battista’s pallor, his

low-set red hat and tunic against her fashionably high fore-
head, blonde hair, and jewels. Her pearls concentrate the
radiance of the landscape and sky in a chain of lucent
globes that deliberately contrast with the square, gray
towers of the city beyond. Every element of luxury in the
veil and jewels has, however, been subordinated to the
sense of order that dominates both portraits and Piero’s
work in general.

The profiles of Federico and Battista are set against con-
tinuous landscapes that surely refer to the extent of their
realm. The city in Battista’s portrait is probably Gubbio,
the second city of the Montefeltro domain, where Battista
had taken her children during the construction of the
palace in Urbino, where she gave birth to Guidobaldo, and
where she died. Piero has set himself new problems in the
landscapes. His representation of atmospheric perspective
makes us aware of how the veil of atmosphere, which even
in a Tuscan summer contains some moisture, softens the

FLORENTINE PAINTING AT MID-CENTURY

291

11.31. PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA. Battista Sforza and Federico da Monte feltro. c. 1474. Panel, each I 8 V 2 x 13" (47 x 33 cm). Uffizi
Gallery, Florence. Probably commissioned by Federico da Montefeltro. Federico would later be immortalized in Baldassare Castiglione’s
Book of the Courtier { 1528).

contours of forms as they recede. But these expanses, so
strangely formed, may have a second, more important,
purpose. Piero seems to have been in touch with the scien-
tific currents of his time and may well have known the
work of his Tuscan contemporary Paolo del Pozzo
Toscaneili, who believed the world was round and
made the map that started Columbus on his voyage.
Perhaps Piero’s continuous plains were intended to reflect
this proposition. Below the allegorical triumphs on the
reverse are Latin inscriptions in Roman capitals. Federico’s
refers to the “fame of his virtues” and asserts that he is the
equal of the greatest leaders. Battista is mentioned in the

past tense; her personal fame and leadership are never
acknowledged, but she is “honored by the praise of the
accomplishments of her great husband.” In the allegories,
triumphal cars driven by putti approach each other, the car
of Federico drawn by horses, that of Battista by unicorns,
symbols of chastity and fidelity respectively. Fortune
crowns Federico. On his car sit Justice, Prudence, Forti-
tude, and Temperance. Standing by Battista, who is shown
reading a prayerbook, are Chastity and Modesty, and
seated on the front of her car are Charity and Faith. The
colors of costumes and armor resonate against the land-
scape, where a lake amid olive-colored hills and valleys

292

THE QUATTROCENTO

11.32. PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA. Triumph of Federico da Montefeltro and Triumph of Battista Sforza (reverse of fig. 11.31).

reflects the sky. The luminous atmosphere and soft colors
are similar to effects found in the art of Jan van Eyck and
Rogier van der Weyden, whose works were known in Italy
at this time. It seems likely that some of Piero’s luminary
effects were created using oil glazes in the Flemish style, a
technique he used elsewhere.

Piero lived on for nearly two decades more but seems to
have moved away from painting in favor of his studies on
perspective and mathematics . His principal theoretical
works are preserved in his own handwriting and include
De prospectiva pingendi (On Fainting in Perspective ), in
which he treats a series of problems in perspective as

propositions in Euclidean style, and De quinque
corporibus regolaribus (On the Five Regular Bodies ), a
study of geometry. According to Vasari, the aged Piero was
blind, and in the mid-sixteenth century a man still lived
who claimed that, as a boy, he had led Piero about Borgo
Sansepolcro by the hand. This story’s validity has been
doubted, but it may well contain more than a grain of
truth even though in 1490, two years before his death,
Piero still wrote in a clear and beautiful hand. Writing with
the aid of a magnifying glass might have been possible for
an artist who could not see well enough to paint panels
and frescoes.

FLORENTINE PAINTING AT MID-CENTURY

1 9 3

wwjm m*

! vi_>

ART IN

D uring the first half of the Quattrocento,
there were variations of manner, taste,
and content, but no basic stylistic con-
flicts among the revolutionary Floren-
tine artists . We might imagine these
architects, sculptors, and painters as a band of hardy con-
spirators — let us say the heroic artists of Nanni di Banco’s
Four Crowned Martyrs (see fig. 7.15) — united against the
entrenched Gothic style. By the 1430s the outcome of the
struggle was no longer in doubt. The major commissions
were awarded to the innovators, and artists who adhered
to the Gothic style were forced to seek commissions in
small towns or such still-Gothic centers as Milan or
Venice. By the middle of the Quattrocento in Florence, fur-
niture, textiles, metalwork, and ceramics had all been
transformed by Renaissance taste. Florentine bottegbe
turned out birth salvers, painted chests, processional
banners, shields, and bridles in the new style. Some also
painted reliefs made by sculptors and produced outdoor
tabernacles and altarpieces for village churches, using ideas
and motifs borrowed from the revolutionary painters,
sometimes even by means of stencils.

In the 1450s, just when the Renaissance style was begin-
ning to seem standard — much as Giotto’s had in the 1320s
and 1330s — a rift appeared that widened within a few
years. Soon there was no longer a single dominant style but
several almost equally important styles that were in sharp

FLORENCE UNDER
THE MEDICI I

contrast to each other and, in general, to the style practiced
by the immediate followers of Masaccio, Donatello, and
the other Early Renaissance innovators. For the next fifty
years these contrasting and sometimes conflicting currents
characterized Florentine art.

By 1450, Brunelleschi, Masaccio, Nanni di Banco, and
Jacopo della Quercia were all dead. After the installation
of the Gates of Paradise in 1452, Ghiberti retired to his
farm to live the life of a country squire. Fra Angelico was
at work on a series of small panels that emphasized per-
sonal religious and artistic introspection. Alberti, Fra
Filippo Lippi, and Piero della Francesca were active
outside Florence and so, until 1454, was Donatello. On his
return, Donatello’s style, affected by the terrible events of
the time, took a strange and, we might say, shocking turn.

We have already seen that the plague of 1448 had serious
consequences for Florence and Rome (see p. 236); more-
over, it kept returning. The humanist pope Nicholas V,
who had once been a university companion of Alberti, fled
Rome to the safety of Fabriano, which papal soldiers then
sealed, forbidding further access. In Florence, St. Antoninus
organized house-to-house efforts to aid the sick, bring the
last rites to the dying, and bury the dead. In 1453, other
events increased the tension. Stefano Porcari, a Roman noble,
led a conspiracy to assassinate the pope at High Mass on
Easter Sunday. Halley’s Comet, considered a harbinger of
disaster, hung over Europe that summer. Earthquakes shook

Opposite: 12.1. BENOZZO GOZZOLI. Fresco cycle. 1459. The Medici Chapel, Palazzo Medici-Riccardi, Florence (see figs. 6.25, 12.24).
Probably commissioned by Piero de’ Medici. The ceiling of the chapel is elaborately carved and gilded and the floor is inlaid with red, white, and
green marbles. In the fifteenth century the chapel was described by Filarete as “most nobly painted by the hand of a good and excellent Florentine
master named Benozzo.”

ART IN FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI I * 2 95

central Italy, especially Florence, many of whose inhabitants
slept outdoors for a month. And the most frightening piece
of news hit Western Europe when the last citadel of the
Greek Orthodox Church, Constantinople, fell to the Turks.

In time Florence recovered, and in 1454 the Peace of
Lodi put an end to most armed conflict in northern Italy
and brought the illusion of restored tranquillity. But some-
thing seems to have happened to the Florentines. On the
surface, the government of Cosimo de’ Medici, although it
suffered serious challenges, continued to work well
enough. The procedure for choosing those who held public
office in Florence was simple: names of citizens were
drawn randomly from leather purses. However, Cosimo
and his sons controlled the system from behind the scenes
by ensuring that only the names of citizens approved by
the Medici party were placed in the purses. Cosimo also
tried to guarantee that his chief enemies, or individuals of
whom he disapproved for one reason or another, were so
heavily taxed that they fled Florence; one victim of this
practice was the humanist Giannozzo Manetti.

Under such circumstances it might be assumed that the
Medici bank and allied commercial establishments would
flourish, but the opposite was the case. Perhaps because
Cosimo paid little attention to banking, perhaps as part of
a Europe-wide decline in business in the second half of the
fifteenth century, the Medici bank gradually closed its
European branches, and the volume of its transactions
declined precipitously. Yet the splendor of the Medici
family, emulated by those who sought their favor, took
little account of the weakening of its financial base. Flo-
rentine architects, sculptors, painters, and artisans were
kept busy designing, building, and decorating family
palaces and the villas (often converted farmhouses) the
Medici established in the countryside (see fig. 12.20).

A Medici inventory made in 1492 reveals the objects
and works of art they had collected over the course of the
century, including sculptures by Donatello, gold objects for
use in the liturgy, coins, cameos, gems, medals, and other
pieces. The most highly valued were ancient gems, cameos,
and vessels carved in stone. Among the most famous of
these was a carved stone goblet, now known as the
“Farnese Cup” (Tazza Farnese ; fig. 12.2), which Lorenzo
acquired in 1471. To claim ownership of such vessels,
Lorenzo had his initials carved into the surface. The addi-
tion of the letters was difficult and could have damaged the
ancient works, but putting the Medici stamp of ownership
on these rare objects was apparently considered worth the
risk. As Lorenzo’s brother-in-law, Bernardo Rucellai,
wrote, “Witness the letters inscribed on the gems them-
selves, displaying the name of Lorenzo, whose carving he
charged to be done, for his own sake and that of his family,
as a future memorial for posterity of his royal splendor.”

Cosimo, an amateur architect in his own right, was suc-
ceeded in 1464 by his sickly son, Piero the Gouty, whose
taste for refinement and luxury was, it seems, rapidly sat-
isfied by artists. Piero’s successor in 1469 was his son
Lorenzo “the Magnificent.” At the time, magnificence was
seen as a virtue because it implied liberal support — intel-
lectual and financial — for one’s city and its institutions.
This was certainly the case for Lorenzo de’ Medici. In
addition, the term magnificence may also refer to the high
level of culture that Lorenzo supported and in which he
participated; one of the humanists of the time, Marsilio
Ficino, even compared Lorenzo’s musical abilities to
those of Apollo. With his pro-Medicean bias, Giorgio
Vasari wrote later that this period was “a golden age for
men of talent.”

12.2. Carved Hellenistic goblet with an allegorical scene of the
Ptolemaic dynasty, known today as the “Farnese cup” (Tazza
Farnese). 1st century BCE. Sardonyx, diameter 7 7 /s" (20 cm).

National Archeological Museum, Naples.

Before it was owned by Lorenzo the Magnificent, this cameo and 820
others were owned by Pietro Barbo, who later became Pope Paul II.
The outside features a representation of the Gorgon’s Head. In the
Medici inventory of 1492 this cup is valued at 10,000 florins, a
hundred times the price of the altarpiece Antonio and Piero del
Pollaiuolo painted for the Chapel of the Cardinal of Portugal, a
copy of which is visible in fig. 12.13.

296

THE QUATTROCENTO

12.3. GIOVANNI DI SER GIOVANNI (CALLED SCHEGGIA).
Birth salver (Desco da Parto) with The Triumph of Fame. c. 1449.
Tempera, silver, and gold on wood; overall, with engaged frame,
diameter 36 V 2 " (92.7 cm); painted surface, diameter 24 5 /s" (62.5
cm). Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The frame is original,
and the reverse is decorated with Medici references (a diamond ring
and the motto SEMPER [“always”]) and with the coats of arms of
the Medici and Tornabuoni families. The patron is unknown, but
this work was probably commissioned by Piero de’ Medici.

Lorenzo’s importance for Florentine art and culture had,
in fact, been predicted in a large tondo featuring The
Triumph of Fame (fig. 12.3) painted to celebrate his birth.
It was hanging near his bedroom when he died in the
Medici Palace in 1492. This is only one of many examples
of such two-sided tondi painted for Florentine families,
although exactly how they were used is still uncertain. The
theme chosen for Lorenzo’s tondo was derived from the
Triumphs of Petrarch and Boccaccio’s The Vision of Love.
Trumpets announce the arrival of Fame from the globe on
which the allegorical figure stands, and knights arrive to
honor her. She holds a sword and a figure of a cupid to
indicate that fame can be accomplished through arms and
love. The feathers on the frame are a reference to Lorenzo’s
father, Piero the Gouty, and the reverse of the tondo fea-
tures other references to the Medici and to the family of
Lorenzo’s mother, Lucrezia Tornabuoni.

The Medici control of governmental affairs in Florence
did not go unchallenged. In 1478, Lorenzo and his brother
Giuliano were attacked. The conspirators, encouraged by

Pope Sixtus IV and members of the papal curia to over-
throw the Medici, included members of the Pazzi family; as
a result the attack became known as the Pazzi Conspiracy.
The attackers struck during the most sacred moment of
Sunday Mass in the Duomo, when Lorenzo and Giuliano
were without bodyguards. Giuliano died, stabbed nineteen
times, but Lorenzo, lightly wounded, escaped by fleeing
into the sacristy and slamming Luca della Robbia’s bronze
doors shut behind him (see figs. 10.18, 2.39). More than
seventy of the perpetrators were captured and hanged from
the windows of the Palazzo dei Priori and the Bargello.
Botticelli and Leonardo da Vinci were commissioned,
perhaps by Lorenzo de’ Medici, to paint portraits of some
of these men, including the archbishop of Pisa, on the exte-
rior walls of the Florentine Customs House. These now-
lost portraits showed the men hanging by the neck, with
one conspirator shown hanging by one foot. The political
message would surely have been obvious to any citizen
passing in the street. Because of the papal court’s involve-
ment, a war broke out between Florence and Rome. Peace
negotiations were not concluded until 1480, and only after
the Medici agreed to have Botticelli’s portrait of the
hanging archbishop of Pisa removed. After the expulsion
of the Medici from Florence in 1494, the other portraits
were also removed.

Giuliano’s death and Lorenzo’s survival are commemo-
rated in a medal commissioned by the latter (figs.
12.4-12.5). On the side honoring Giuliano, the attack is
shown in front of the polygonal enclosure that surrounded
the Duomo’s altar, emphasizing the sacrilegious nature and
timing of the murder. Giuliano’s gigantic head soars over
the scene; he is identified by name, and the phrase
“LUCTUS PUBLICUS” (“Public Mourning”) below his
profile identifies the appropriate public response to his
murder. The phrase “SALUS PUBLICA” (“Public Safety”)
appears below Lorenzo’s head, implying that Lorenzo’s sal-
vation was crucial for the good of the city.

Another commemoration of the event was a life-sized
figure of Lorenzo with cloth garments and a wax head and
hands. Commissioned by the Baroncelli family, it was set
up in front of a miracle-working crucifix in their family
church. Since a family member had been part of the
conspiracy, the figure of Lorenzo was probably made to
reassure the surviving Medici of the allegiance of the
rest of the family. The figure wore the bloodstained gar-
ments Lorenzo had been wearing that Sunday, which he
donated for this commemoration. Many figures of this
type were documented, but none survives. They represent
one of many genres of Renaissance art for which we have
no visual record. Such gaps remind us how limited our
knowledge is of certain aspects of the visual culture of
this period.

ART IN FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI I • 2 97

12.4, 12.5. BERTOLDO DI GIOVANNI, cast by ANDREA GUACIALOTI. Commemorative Medal of the Pazzi Conspiracy with the
Portraits of Lorenzo ilMagnifico (obverse, left) and Giuliano de’ Medici (reverse, right; shown actual size). 1478. Bronze, diameter 2V2"
(6.4 cm). Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Bequest of Anne D. Thomson, 1923. Commissioned by Lorenzo de’ Medici.

Bertoldo di Giovanni, a pupil of Donatello, was a member of Lorenzo’s intimate circle. The many surviving copies of this medal indicate
that it was widely circulated.

Despite attempts to suppress it, the anti-Medicean party
continued to grow during the last years of what should
perhaps be known as Lorenzo’s reign. The flames of their
anger and discontent were fanned by the sermons of Giro-
lamo Savonarola, a Ferrarese monk who succeeded St.
Antoninus and Fra Angelico as prior of the monastery of
San Marco. After Lorenzo’s death in 1492, his son Piero,
nicknamed “the Unlucky,” failed to maintain the family’s
control of the city. In 1494 Piero and his brothers — Cardi-
nal Giovanni, later Pope Leo X, and Giuliano, later duke
of Nemours — were forced to flee Florence. Some works of
art from the Medici Palace were moved to the Palazzo
dei Priori, and the rest of the contents were sold at auction.
It is small wonder that the humanistic precepts so impor-
tant earlier — intellectualism, order, harmony — had lost
their relevance.

Donatello after 1453

The date, original location, and patronage of Donatello’s
harrowing figure of The Penitent Magdalen (fig. 12.6) are
all unknown. What is not in question is its strong expres-
sive power.

Represented as emaciated from thirty years of penitence
in the wilderness and clothed only in her own long hair,

this skeletal, even spectral, creation at first seems to be the
antithesis of the Early Renaissance figures discussed previ-
ously. But this is no return to the Middle Ages, and the new
developments seen in the first Renaissance sculptures are
also important for this figure. She stands, for example, in
a beautiful and subtle contrapposto. This pose, in combi-
nation with the refined bone structure of her facial features
and the elegance of her long fingers and delicately formed
ankles and feet, subtly reminds us that the Magdalen was
traditionally known for her great beauty. It is clear that
Donatello was here interested in developing character,
just as he had been earlier in the Sts. Mark and George and
the Zuccone (see figs. 7.12-7.13, 7.17). Of utmost impor-
tance in this case is the Magdalen’s spiritual presence: her
eyes are focused on an inner vision, and her mouth seems
to be murmuring a prayer as she raises her hands and asks
for forgiveness.

A flood of the Arno in 1966 immersed the lower part of
the statue in water, mud, and oil, necessitating a cleaning
of the surface. A coat of brown paint, apparently added in
the seventeenth century, was removed, disclosing that
Donatello had originally painted the flesh to suggest the
leathery tan produced by years of exposure to the sun, and
had added streaks of gilded highlights to enhance the Mag-
dalen’s traditionally red hair. Wooden figures were some-

298

THE QUATTROCENTO

12.6. DONATELLO. The Penitent Magdalen. 1430s-50s(?). Poplar
wood with polychromy and gold, height 6'2" (1.88 m). Museo
dell’ Opera del Duomo, Florence.

times carried through the streets in processions, and the
shimmering streaks of gold on her hair would have been
dazzling when hit by the sun in the open air. Like the late
works of Castagno (see fig. 11.16), those of Donatello
admit us to an inner world of emotional stress, and to a
merciless examination of the ravages of time and decay on
the human body.

Donatello’s bronze group representing Judith cutting off
the head of the enemy general Holofernes (fig. 12.7) was
probably commissioned for the garden of the Medici
Palace, where it is first documented. After the expulsion of
the Medici in 1494, it was placed in front of the Palazzo
dei Priori to symbolize revolt against tyranny, but when it
belonged to the Medici, the group had another meaning,
indicated by an inscription that described how the head of
Pride was cut off by the hand of Humility. Judith’s victory
over Holofernes is told in the Book of Judith in the Old
Testament Apocrypha, and her purity in the face of
Holofernes’s flattery as he tried to seduce her was com-
pared to the virginity of Mary. In a simile borrowed from
the Song of Songs, Judith, like Mary, is described as a camp
of armed steel, an army terrible with banners.

Donatello’s Judith stands transfixed at the moment of
victory. The text tells us that, with God’s assistance, this
modest and devout woman beheaded Holofernes with two
blows. In Donatello’s representation she has struck
Holofernes once and cut deeply into his neck; the sword is
raised for the second blow. Her left foot is planted on
Holofernes’s right wrist, the right on his left thigh and,
perhaps, his genitals. Judith’s halting movement is intensi-
fied by the convulsed masses of cloth that cover her figure.
In making the mold, Donatello apparently applied cloth
soaked in a thin paste of clay to the clay figure, modeling
it in place. Before the figure was cast in bronze some of the
clay broke off, revealing the underlying cloth; Donatello
chose not to repair the break.

A set of reliefs by Donatello, finished in part by his stu-
dents and now on two pulpits in San Lorenzo, are as star-
tling as the Magdalen and Judith . The reliefs were not
installed on the pulpits during Donatello’s lifetime, and
their original purpose is uncertain. It has been proposed
that they were originally intended for three separate mon-
uments: a pulpit, an altar table, and a tomb for Cosimo de’
Medici. Their themes focus on the Passion of Christ and
the martyrdom of St. Lawrence, patron saint of both the
Medici and the church of San Lorenzo.

The style of the reliefs is characterized by freedom,
sketchiness, and even, at times, brutality. They are extraor-
dinary, even for Donatello, and it could be argued that
some of the expressive devices found here do not recur
until the early twentieth century. The scenes on one of the
pulpits are flanked by fluted Renaissance pilasters, but

ART IN FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI I * 2 9 9

12.7. DONATELLO. Jwd/Y/; and Holof ernes, c. 1446-60. Bronze,
height 7'9" (2.36 m, including base). Palazzo Vecchio, Florence.
Perhaps commissioned by a member of the Medici family for the
garden of the Medici Palace. For a diagram of the casting of the
upper portion of Judith, see fig. 1.19.

figures overlap these frames, as if moving out into the
space of the spectator. The Lamentation (fig. 12.8) takes
place below the three crosses, which are placed diagonally
to the picture plane and cut off by the upper frame. The
thieves still hang on their crosses, but of the penitent thief
we see only the knees, calves, and feet. A ladder leaning
against the central cross recedes diagonally in the opposite
direction. Christ, at the foot of the ladder, lies across the
knees of his mother. She holds his head, assisted by a figure
whose head is concealed behind that of Christ in a manner
unexpected at this time. Mary’s face is recessed under her
veil in such a way that the light coming through the high
windows of the church shadows her expression; Donatello
thus guarantees the grieving mother the dignity of privacy
at this poignant moment. The Lamentation poses insoluble
mysteries: four screaming, maenad-like women rush
about, but which one is the Magdalen? Who is the semi-
nude figure reclining in anguish at the lower right corner?
Why are the soldiers on horseback nude? Such icono-
graphic uncertainties, uncommon in Renaissance art, add
to the fascination of the relief.

The panels on the second pulpit are framed in an
unprecedented illusionistic configuration: low brick walls
roofed with tiles project outward, seeming to push the
figures forward into the space of the church. Donatello’s
unorthodox manner of interpreting and representing nar-
rative is expressed in three scenes from Christ’s Passion:
the Harrowing of Hell, the Resurrection, and the Ascen-
sion (fig. 12.9). They were perhaps originally intended for
a tomb, for which the iconography would be appropriate.
In the scene where Christ breaks down the gates of hell to
save those holy figures, such as Moses, who had died
before him, the clamoring crowd almost overwhelms him.
Note the hideous devil to the left and the skeletal figure of
St. John the Baptist to the right. The Resurrection is the
most surprising, for this is not a heroic interpretation of
this triumphant scene: Christ is exhausted and seems
barely able to pull himself upward. In traditional represen-
tations (see fig. 11.19) Christ is centralized; here he is
placed to the far left, as if to suggest that his resurrection
is slow and difficult. In the subsequent Ascension ,
however, victory is his, for he rises dramatically upward
past the frame of the scene, leaving the apostles and Virgin
Mary kneeling below. The progression of the figure of
Christ in these three scenes — from submersion in the
crowd to stepping upward out of the tomb to the final
levitation — is almost cinematic.

In his last works, the aged sculptor — one of the founders
of the Renaissance and a prime mover of every change in
its evolution — abandoned the Renaissance notion of the
ideal in order to emphasize drama and emotion and to
involve the observer more fully in the experiences he was

3 0 0

THE QUATTROCENTO

12.8. DONATELLO. Lamentation . 1460s; completed by students of Donatello at a later date. Bronze, height approx. 40" (1 m). 1 S. Lorenzo,
Florence. Commissioned by a member of the Medici family.

In 1547 the Renaissance sculptor Baccio Bandinelli explained that the rough finish of these works was the result of the aging Donatello’s failing
eyesight: “When he did the pulpits and doors of bronze in San Lorenzo for Cosimo il Vecchio, Donatello was so old that his eyesight no longer
permitted him to judge them properly and to give them a beautiful finish; although their conception is good, Donatello never did coarser work.”
Portraits of Cosimo de’ Medici and his wife Contessina have been identified in the two figures at the foot of the left-hand cross.

12.9. DONATELLO. The Harrowing of Hell, the Resurrection, and the Ascension. 1460s. Bronze, height approx. 26" (66 cm), it S. Lorenzo,
Florence. Commissioned by a member of the Medici family.

ART IN FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI I * 3 OI

representing. In the 1450s, both Donatello and Castagno
possessed an insight into suffering that enabled them to
explore the darker regions of human experience.

Desiderio da Settignano

Desiderio da Settignano (c. 1429/32-1464) chose a differ-
ent direction and style. The son of a stone carver, he was
born and trained in Settignano, a village of stonecutters.
Few sculptors have understood the possibilities of marble
with such intimacy as Desiderio.

At Santa Croce Desiderio designed the tomb of the Flo-
rentine humanist chancellor Carlo Marsuppini (fig. 12.10)
as a pendant to Lionardo Bruni’s tomb by Bernardo
Rossellino (see fig. 10.27), which lies directly opposite.
The general layout of the monuments is similar and may
even have been required by the commission, but the Mar-
suppini tomb produces an impression of greater lightness
and grace. The sarcophagus and bier are lower, the mold-
ings narrower, and Desiderio has divided the paneling into
four narrow slabs that accent verticality. He crowns his
design with a tall lampstand and elegant moldings imitated
from Roman art — elements in keeping with the classical
style of the epitaph carved onto the elegant sarcophagus:
“Stay and see the marbles that enshrine a great sage, one
for whose mind there was not world enough. Carlo, the
great glory of his age, knew all that nature, the heavens
and human conduct have to tell. O Roman and Greek
muses, now unloose your hair. Alas, the fame and splendor
of your choir is dead.” At the base of the pilasters, putti
hold shields displaying the Marsuppini arms (fig. 12.11).
Rather than being rectangular, the sarcophagus has the
curving forms of an ancient Roman funerary urn. An antique
vine-scroll ornament animates its surfaces, and the open-
work scrolls at the upper corners and winged shell at the
base demonstrate Desiderio’s remarkable skill in carving.

Desiderio ’s rilievo schiacciato of the Meeting of Christ
and John the Baptist as Youths (fig. 12.12) can be related
to a passage written by Giovanni Dominici in 1403 in his
On the Education of Children :

Have pictures of saintly children or young virgins in the
home, in which your child, still in swaddling clothes, may
take delight and thereby may be gladdened by acts and signs
pleasing to childhood. And what I say of pictures applies also
to statues. It is well to have the Virgin Mary with the Child
in her arms, with a little bird or apple in His hand. There
should be a good representation of Jesus suckling, sleeping in
His Mother’s lap or standing courteously before Her while
they look at each other. So let the child see himself mirrored
in the Holy Baptist clothed in camel’s skin, a little child who
enters the desert, plays with the birds, sucks the honeyed

flowers and sleeps on the ground. It will not be amiss if he
should see Jesus and the Baptist, Jesus and the boy Evange-
list pictured together; [or] the slaughtered Innocents, so that
he may learn the fear of weapons and of armed men.

12.10. DESIDERIO DA SETTIGNANO. Tomb of Carlo
Marsuppini. c. 1459. White and colored marbles, originally with
gilding and green and red paint and fresco surround; 20' x H'9"
(6.1 x 3.6 m). it Sta. Croce, Florence. While the patron would
probably have been the Florentine state because of Marsuppini’s
service as the city’s chancellor, evidence shows that the tomb was
in part funded by the Martelli and Medici families.

3 0 2

THE QUATTROCENTO

12.11. Putto, detail of fig. 12.10.

Marsuppini tomb, these effects are exploited by broad sur-
faces, subtle cutting, and a delicate polish, while in the
tondo with the two boys, the slightest variation in surface
level is used to define the forms and to suggest their
flowing locks and spontaneous expressions. Desiderio’s
works embody the ideals of elegance and refinement char-
acteristic of the Florentine aristocracy at mid-century.

Above: 12.12. DESIDERIO DA SETTIGNANO. Meeting of
Christ and John the Baptist as Youths (Arconati-Visconti Tondo).
c. 1453-64. Marble relief, diameter 20" (50 cm). The Louvre, Paris.
In the sixteenth century, Vasari described a tondo of this subject,
perhaps this one, as in the collection of Cosimo I de’ Medici, but
no such work is listed in the 1492 inventory of the Medici Palace.

This passage demonstrates that images in the home were
intended to teach even very young children not only the
identity of figures in religious art but also an understand-
ing of Christian beliefs and moral behavior. In Desiderio’s
relief, the boy Christ is distinguished by the cross in his
halo, the youthful Baptist by the animal skin. Desiderio
captures the vivacity of their interaction, and the happy
expressions reveal a delight in their relationship that would
indeed provide an appropriate model for children.

Desiderio seems to have set out to achieve in marble the
effects of light created in paint by Fra Angelico and
Domenico Veneziano, and in gilded bronze by Ghiberti.
He knew that the brilliant whiteness of marble meant that
any shadow would be partly dissolved by the light from
the crystals and partly radiated by reflections from sur-
rounding illuminated surfaces. In the figures on the

The Chapel of the Cardinal
of Portugal

Antonio Rossellino (1427-1479) was the youngest of five
artist brothers, and his nickname (Rossellino means “Little
Redhead”) became the name by which the whole family
was known. He was the pupil of his older brother
Bernardo (see figs. 10.5, 10.27). Antonio and his work-
shop played an important role in the creation of the burial
chapel of the Cardinal of Portugal (figs. 12.13-12.14),
which required the collaboration of an architect, four
sculptors (Antonio Rossellino, his brothers Bernardo and
Giovanni, and Luca della Robbia), three painters (Alesso
Baldovinetti and Antonio and Piero Pollaiuolo), their
workshops, and other craftsmen as well. Despite these
many hands, the chapel today — which looks exactly as it

ART IN FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI I • 303

12.13. ANTONIO MANETTI (architect);
ANTONIO, BERNARDO, and
GIOVANNI ROSSELLINO (sculptors);
ANTONIO and PIERO DEL
POLLAIUOLO and ALESSO
BALDOVINETTI (painters). Chapel of the
Cardinal of Portugal. 1460-73. S. Miniato,
Florence (see also figs. 12.14, 12.27).

1 Commissioned by the executors of the will
of the Cardinal of Portugal. The altarpiece
shown here is a copy of the original, by
Antonio and Piero del Pollaiuolo, now in
the Uffizi Gallery.

must have in the 1470s — is a stylistically unified totality
rather than a demonstration of the diverse talents of a
number of individuals.

James, a prince of the Portuguese royal family who was
made a cardinal at twenty-two, died of tuberculosis in
Florence when he was only twenty-five. He had expressed
a desire to be buried at San Miniato, and immense sums
poured in for his funerary chapel. After all, one of his
cousins was king of Portugal, another was the Holy
Roman Empress, and his aunt was the duchess of Bur-
gundy, the richest state in Europe. The chapel was designed
by Antonio Manetti, a pupil of Brunelleschi, and the archi-
tectural detail was carved by Giovanni Rossellino, third of
the five Rossellino brothers. Work started in 1460 and was
carried out rapidly, as is shown in documents that log the
work on the chapel almost from day to day.

The ground plan is a perfect square, with arches on the
three inner walls that match the open arch of the entrance.
Coffers with decoration highlighted in gold fill each arch.

Classicizing pilasters define the corners and frame each
wall. The chapel’s unity is clearly the result of thoughtful
planning. On the back and left walls, for example, there is
a round window; on the tomb wall this is matched by the
appearance of a Madonna and Child in a windowlike form
of the same dimensions. The pattern of the metal gate that
closes off the chapel resembles twisted rope; the same
design decorates the painted railing behind the figures in
the altarpiece. The landscape in the altarpiece looks like
the view we would see over the Arno Valley if the altar
wall were to be dissolved, while the cypress trees above the
Annunciation on the left wall (see fig. 12.27) copy those in
the cemetery just outside this chapel. The inlaid marble
floor copies the Romanesque style of circles and geometric
patterning (known as Cosmati work) in the pavements of
the adjacent church; this pattern of circles is in turn echoed
in Luca della Robbia’s enameled terra-cotta dome, which
has five medallions representing the Cardinal Virtues and
the Descent of the Holy Ghost. On the altar wall, Antonio

304

THE QUATTROCENTO

►X*X«>>3

12.14. ANTONIO ROSSELLINO. Tomb of the Cardinal of Portugal. 1460— 66. White and colored marbles with traces of polychromy and
gold, width of chapel wall 15'9" (4.8 m). !m Chapel of the Cardinal of Portugal, S. Miniato, Florence. Commissioned by the executors of the will
of the Cardinal of Portugal. Originally certain details were colored and/or gilded.

ART IN FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI I * 3°5

Pollaiuolo’s frescoed angels pull back curtains similar to
those that surround the Cardinal’s tomb on the right wall.

Documents reveal that in executing the tomb Antonio
Rossellino was helped by several assistants and his brother
Bernardo, but there is little doubt that he was the designer
and leading master. As compared with earlier, static tombs,
Antonio’s is dynamic. The traditional curtains seem to
have been momentarily drawn aside to reveal the monu-
ment. The cardinal lies on a bier above a coffin that
Antonio imitated — at the cardinal’s request — from an
ancient Roman porphyry sarcophagus at that time in the
portico of the Pantheon. The two angels to the sides seem
to have just alighted; one bears the Crown of Eternal Life,
the other once held the Palm of Victory. The red marble
background was once covered with gilded designs to
resemble a brocaded cloth-of-honor, and an ornamental
structure in the center of the wall is made of rare stones.
Against this background two more angels seem to fly in,
holding a circular marble wreath. Here, against a ground
of blue with gold stars, the Virgin and Child bless the car-
dinal. This heavenly vision seems to be resting briefly,
poised against the architecture by the angels, as if in a
moment they might move on.

The angel with the crown can be attributed to the more
conservative Bernardo, while the one who once held the
palm shows the greater dynamism of Antonio’s style.
Antonio was aware, like Desiderio, of the luminous possi-
bilities of marble, but he found other means of exploiting
it. In the Madonna and Child , placed so that the light in
the chapel never leaves their features, we see how Antonio
brings unity through light that flows over the surfaces of
flesh and drapery.

The handsome young cardinal seems to be dreaming of
the paradise to which the sacred figures promise him
entrance, although one could almost say that it lies around
us as we stand in this most perfect of Quattrocento
chapels. Documents suggest that Desiderio supplied a
death mask of the cardinal, from which Antonio created
the convincing portrait. The base of the tomb features
youthful genii, cornucopias, unicorns holding garlands,
and a skull that seems to be smiling.

Benedetto and Giuliano da Maiano

Of the host of marble sculptors at work in the later Quat-
trocento, one of the most vigorous was Benedetto da
Maiano (c. 1442-1497), who, like the Rossellino brothers,
came from a family of stonecutters. The family is named
for their hometown, Maiano, which is close to the quarries
where pietra serena is still being extracted. Benedetto’s
work includes a pulpit with scenes from the life of St.
Francis for Santa Croce in Florence (visible in fig. 2.36),

12.15. BENEDETTO DA MAIANO. Bust of Pietro Mellini. 1474.
Marble, height 21" (53.3 cm). Museo Nazionale del Bargello,
Florence. Probably commissioned by the sitter.

the tomb of Filippo Strozzi (visible in fig. 13.33), a deco-
rated marble doorway in the Palazzo dei Priori, and a
number of portrait busts. Benedetto’s Bust of Pietro
Mellini (fig. 12.15) presents a topographic survey of the
wrinkled features of the elderly subject. There is an
honesty here that is related to republican and early impe-
rial Roman portraiture.

Benedetto and his brother Giuliano were architects as
well as sculptors. Giuliano (1432-1490) is best known as
a woodworker and executor of architectural ornament; it
is in this capacity that he worked on an important project
for the Florentine Duomo: the inlaid wood ( intarsia ) deco-
ration of the North Sacristy (fig. 12.16). Giuliano’s contri-
bution included scenes of the local bishop-saint Zenobius
flanked by two saints, and the Annunciation , flanked by
the prophets Amos and Isaiah. The frieze around the top
includes carved putti holding garlands, a motif derived
from ancient Roman sculpture that became an important
decorative element in Renaissance art.

306 *

THE QUATTROCENTO

12.16. ANTONIO MANETTI, GIULIANO DA MAIANO, and others. Intarsia decoration of the North Sacristy of Florence Cathedral.
1436— 45, 1463-65. Inlaid and carved wood, ii Commissioned by the Opera del Duomo.

The decoration of the sacristy includes documented work by Agnolo di Lazzaro, Bernardo di Tommaso di Ghigo, Francesco di Giovanni di
Guccio, and Lo Scheggia on the south wall, in addition to that by Manetti (the north wall) and Giuliano da Maiano (the end wall). The figure
of Amos is perhaps based on a cartoon by Antonio del Pollaiuolo. The frieze with carved putti is by several artists including, possibly, Giuliano ’s
brother Benedetto.

The skill needed to execute such a project is
evident, especially given the fact that intarsia workers
prided themselves on using only natural-colored wood
rather than resorting to dyed or bleached wood. Working
from a cartoon prepared by the artist, woodworkers cut
pieces of thin wood veneer and inlaid them into a solid
ground. Intarsia was practiced in Italy beginning in the
fourteenth century, with the Florentine Sacristy and the
Studiolo at Urbino (see figs. 14.31-14.32), probably also
designed by Giuliano, providing the best surviving exam-
ples. Both rooms demonstrate the woodworkers’ interest
in creating complex trompe Voeil effects in this
difficult medium.

In its gigantic scale and massive bulk, the Palazzo Strozzi
(fig. 12.17) dwarfs every other residence in Florence. The
design is attributed to Benedetto da Maiano, but the extant
wooden model on display at the Palazzo Strozzi was made
by Giuliano da Sangallo (see pp. 309-12), and the colossal
cornice was added by Simone del Pollaiuolo, called 11
Cronaca, who succeeded Benedetto as architect.

Sources tell us that the Florentine banker Filippo Strozzi
wanted to build a palace that would outshine any other in
Florence. Mindful of the fate of his exiled ancestor Palla,
however, Filippo showed designs for a more modest struc-
ture to Lorenzo de’ Medici. Lorenzo thought them insignif-
icant and urged Filippo to build something more imposing,

ART IN FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI I * 3 07

12.17. BENEDETTO DA MAIANO. Palazzo Strozzi, Florence. 1489-1507. Commissioned by Filippo Strozzi.

When he returned from exile in 1466, Filippo Strozzi wrote: “I am constantly thinking and planning, and if God should grant me a prosperous
life I hope to achieve something memorable.” After the palazzo was begun he wrote in his Memoirs that it was “for the benefit of myself and that
of all my descendants.” The idealism of the Renaissance is evident in his hope that the family palazzo would serve “as an abode for great, noble
men of good will.”

When Filippo Strozzi died in 1494, the lowest story of the palace had been completed only to the height of the iron rings used for tying the reins
of horses. The surviving wooden model of the Palazzo Strozzi should perhaps be related to Alberti’s advice: jfl always recommend the ancient
builders’ practice by which not only drawings and pictures but also wooden models are made, so that the projected work can be considered and
reconsidered, with the counsel of experts, in its whole and all its parts.” Unfortunately, II Cronaca’s cornice stops halfway along the Via Strozzi
facade, and it is uncertain if it conforms to Benedetto’s original design.

3 0 8 •

THE QUATTROCENTO

as befitted the magnificence of the Strozzi family and
Lorenzo’s Florence. This gave Filippo the opportunity to
do what he had intended all along. The finished building
differs from Florentine palaces of the Medici type, as well
as from Giuliano da Sangallo’s model, because it is unified
by rustication that at first seems uniform; only close study
reveals that the projection of the stones is slightly gradu-
ated from one story to the next. Benedetto thus harmo-
nized the parts in a manner that fulfills Albertian ideals.

The oblong courtyard (fig. 12.18) is, in the opinion of
some scholars, Florence’s finest Quattrocento courtyard.
Compared to the Medici Palace courtyard (see fig. 6.26),
the Strozzi example is larger and deeper, allowed Benedetto
to use higher columns and arches. There are further refine-
ments. Arched openings in the central story, some filled
with cruciform windows and some originally left open,
echo the open arches below. The third story is a loggia of
delicate Corinthian columns united by a balustrade. Thus
the courtyard both opens outward through the surround-
ing apertures and seems to open upward through the use
of superimposed verticals. The increase in scale and unity
ty pifies later Quattrocento Florentine architecture.

Giuliano da Sangallo

Giuliano da Sangallo (1443P-1516) was the first eminent
member of a dynasty of architects that included Giuliano’s
brother Antonio the Elder (see figs. 18.1, 18.54-18.56)
and their nephew Antonio the Younger (see figs.
18.57-18.59). Giuliano, perhaps the most imaginative Flo-
rentine architect of the later Quattrocento, was imbued
with the refined classicism of the age, and his buildings
provide a setting for the cultivated life we know from the
writings of contemporary historians and philosophers. His
knowledge of Roman antiquity was derived from study of
the original monuments, and his drawings often document
buildings that no longer exist or have been modified over
the years (fig. 12.19). Despite this interest in antiquity,
Giuliano never forgot his Brunelleschian heritage.
Although he was probably only a year older than Donato
Bramante, founder of High Renaissance architecture, Giu-
liano did not produce any work in that new, grand style.

Giuliano’s Florentine buildings of the 1480s include a
villa at Poggio a Caiano (fig. 12.20), built for Lorenzo de’
Medici on a small hill (poggio is the Italian word for hill)

12.18. BENEDETTO DA MAIANO. Courtyard, Palazzo Strozzi,
Florence.

flWfc ■% fflCiJQI H!ij iiielBi

12.19. GIULIANO DA SANGALLO. Ruins of the Ancient
Roman Theater of Marcellus, Rome. 1480s. Drawing, I8V4 x 15 V2"
(46 x 37.82 cm). Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vatican, Rome.

ART IN FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI I * 309

12.20. GIULIANO DA SANGALLO. Villa Medici, Poggio a Caiano. 1480s. Commission cd by Lorenzo dc' Medici. The double staircase and
crowning clock were added in the eighteenth century.

near the plain of Prato. The site was chosen to command
views of the plain and of the mountains to the north and
south. The simple block of GiuLiano’s structure, with its
plain walls and sharply projecting eaves, is interrupted by
a temple portico, apparently the first in a long line of such
porticoes fur Renaissance and Baroque villas. The widely
spaced columns and low, broad proportions are unex-
pected, but they may have been based on Etruscan models;
such an archaeological reference would have been appreci-
ated in the Tuscany of the Medici,

Within the pediment are the Medici arms, the surround-
ing space filled by flowing ribbons in an antique style. The

12.21. GIULIANO DA SANGALLO. Sta. Maria delle Careen,
Prato. 1485-92. Commissioned by the Opera of Sta. Maria delle
Carceri,

The imperus to build the church was to house a miracle-working
image, as is revealed in the diary of Luca Landucd: 14 At Prato in July
of 1484, the populace began to worship an image of the Virgin Mary,
which was carried throughout the city. The image performed many
miracles ... causing the townspeople to initiate the construction
Jof a church | at great expense.”

3 1 °

THE QUATTROCENTO

12.22. Plan of fig. 12.21.

columns are Ionic, but a broad, fluted necking band
increases the importance of the capitals in an effort to
provide visual support for the rather heavy pediment.
Behind the pediment, a barrel vault covers a loggia where
the Medici and their guests could sit in the shade. A similar
barrel vault, much larger, roofs the central hall of the villa,
which was later decorated with a fresco by Jacopo
Pontormo (see fig. 18.23). The cream color of the walls
and the gray of the pietra serena are enhanced by an enam-
eled terra-cotta frieze of white figures against a blue
ground that represents legends of the ancient gods.
Neither the sculptor of the frieze nor all the subjects have
been identified.

Giuliano’s other principal extant structure is the church
of Santa Maria delle Carceri at Prato (fig. 12.21-12.23).

! 2.23. Interior of fig. 12.21.

ART IN FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI I • 3 I I

Like so many other churches of the late Quattrocento and
early Cinquecento, it was built to enshrine a miraculous
image. The Greek cross plan was perhaps influenced by
that of Alberti’s San Sebastiano in Mantua. It is sur-
mounted by a dome with twelve ribs, twelve oculi, and a
lantern, closely following Brunelleschi’s domes for the sac-
risty of San Lorenzo and the Pazzi Chapel (see figs. 6.15,
6.1). Giuliano’s forms, however, are more richly modeled,
in accordance with the taste of the time, and on the inte-
rior he inserted a walkway and balustrade at the base of
the dome. The blue-and-white terra-cotta frieze is rich with
lampstands, garlands, and ribbons, and each of the figured
capitals is different. The exterior, still unfinished, has
marble incrustation in the Albertian tradition, as seen in
Luciano Laurana’s ideal cityscape (see fig. 14.30). The spe-

cific details — a Doric lower story surmounted by an Ionic
story two-thirds its height, with enframing pilasters clus-
tered at the corners — also demonstrate the theorist’s ideals.

Benozzo Gozzoli

The painter who seems to typify the luxurious tendencies
of the 1450s is Benozzo Gozzoli (c. 1421-1497). His long
artistic career began in the studio of Fra Angelico. Later he
worked in Umbria and in Rome where, with a collabora-
tor, he was commissioned to paint mantles and banners for
the crowning of Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini as Pope Pius
II; unfortunately none of these examples of Renaissance
ephemera survives. He returned to Florence to paint the
frescoes in the chapel in the Palazzo Medici (figs. 12.1,

12.24. BENOZZO GOZZOLI. Procession of the Magi. c. 1459. Fresco. Medici Chapel, Palazzo Medici-Riccardi, Florence.
Probably commissioned by Piero de’ Medici (see also fig. 12.1).

3 12

THE QUATTROCENTO

12.24; for the palace see figs. 6.22-6.26). The Medici
belonged to the Company of the Magi, a religious organi-
zation that flourished in Renaissance Florence. Their par-
ticipation in this confraternity almost certainly explains
the choice of the Journey of the Magi as the subject for
their chapel decorations. Certainly, Benozzo’s frescoes
have nothing to do with the rather penitential mood of
The Adoration of the Infant Jesus painted by Fra Filippo
Lippi as the chapel’s altarpiece only a few years earlier
(see fig. 9.15).

The landscape background that plays such an important
role in Benozzo’s decoration is derived from the surround-
ings of Florence and includes castles and villas owned by
the Medici, while the retinue includes contemporary
figures, several of whom seem to be trying to catch the eye
of the spectator. The man on the white horse leading the
cavalcade at the left has been identified as Piero the Gouty,
while behind him is Cosimo riding on a donkey. Portraits
of Piero’s children Giuliano and Lorenzo appear in the
group to the left, below Benozzo’s self-portrait, which is
identified by the Latin signature “OPUS BENOTII” (“The
work of Benozzo”) on his hat. The clothing and horse
trappings, studded with gold and blazing with red, blue,
and yellow against the green of the foliage, are enhanced
by the red Florentine robes.

The composition is unified by the landscape, with its
vertical trees and curving roads, and the walls of the chapel
seem to have been painted away by Benozzo’s continuous
panorama. The result is similar to the tapestry-like effect
noted in the Gothic frescoes in Trent (see fig. 5.24), sug-
gesting that Gozzoli’s patron may have wanted the paint-
ings to emulate that much more expensive medium.
Cosimo de’ Medici would have been as aware of the pres-
tige of Northern tapestries as was the patron of the earlier
frescoes. Benozzo, however, combines the decorative pat-
terning of tapestries with a deep and broad Florentine
landscape, strongly modeled figures, animals seen in con-
vincing recession, careful observation of detail, and inci-
sive portraits of the prominent Florentines who were his
patrons and his patrons’ friends.

Baldovinetti and Pesellino

Among the artists of the Florentine Renaissance, Alesso
Baldovinetti (1425-1499) was the only one brought up in
patrician surroundings. The Baldovinetti were among the
oldest families in Florence, and their house-tower is still
visible from the Ponte Vecchio. Alesso was apprenticed to
Domenico Veneziano at Sant’Egidio, but he soon came
under the influence of Andrea del Castagno. In his journal
he records having painted — more or less from Castagno ’s
dictation when the latter was ill — a hell scene “with many

infernal furies.” But the gentleness of Alesso’s art had little
in common with that of Castagno, and his work is suffused
with the soft light that he knew from the works of
Domenico. While Baldovinetti’s art can be whimsical,
witty, charming, and refined, he must be appreciated as a
conservative artist rather than an innovator.

Baldovinetti’s profile portrait of an unknown Florentine
woman (fig. 12.25) expresses patrician Quattrocento ele-
gance. She is posed in the conventional profile view that is
used almost without exception for female portraits until
the end of the century, long after male sitters are shown
turned toward the observer (see fig. 13.26). Such a pose,
precluding eye contact, is surely related to social practices;
Alberti’s advice to women in his book on the family cau-
tions humility lest one risk divine wrath: “A beautiful face
is praised, but unchaste eyes make it ugly through men’s
scorn. ... A handsome person is pleasing to see, but a
shameless gesture or an act of incontinence in an instant
renders her appearance vile. Unchastity angers God, and
you know that God punishes nothing so severely in women
as he does this lack.”

The three palm leaves that decorate the sitter’s sleeve are
probably a reference either to her paternal family or, were
she married or about to be married, to that of her husband.
The representation seems to be less a portrait of a specific
woman and more an emblem of male property. The fact
that she remains anonymous may underscore the limited
status of women during this period. As this picture attests,

12.25. ALESSO BALDOVINETTI. Portrait of a Young Woman.
c. 1465. Panel, 25 x 16" (62.9 x 40.6 cm). National Gallery, London.

ART IN FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI I * 3 I 3

12.26. ALESSO BALDOVINETTI. Nativity . 1460-62. Fresco, 13 '4" x 14’ (4 x 4.3 m). Atrium, SS. Annunziata, Florence. Commissioned by
Arrigo Arrigucci, whose portrait may appear in one of the medallions in the frame.

the opportunities for expression, self-discovery, and inno-
vation that Renaissance humanism opened to men were
not equally available to women.

Alesso’s interest in local landscape is evident in the Arno
Valley view that he chose as the background for his fresco
of the Nativity at Santissima Annunziata (fig. 12.26),
which occupied him off and on between 1460 and 1462.
This length of time should indicate that Alesso did not
follow the traditional method used by Andrea del
Castagno, for example, who could have completed a fresco
this size in a month. But Castagno cared little about the

subtleties of diffused light or Alberti’s total visual unity,
while Baldovinetti seems to have concluded that he could
obtain neither by traditional means. He therefore painted
only a few portions of the picture in true fresco, and then
waited until the plaster had dried so that he could paint a
secco. Because the fresco was located in an atrium exposed
to winter fogs and rain, in time the a secco faces, hands,
and drapery peeled off, and Alesso’s underdrawing is now
visible. Even so, the painting is impressive in the airy open-
ness of its setting and the view over the expansive Tuscan
plain, which is filled with the light of a clear winter day.

3 14

THE QUATTROCENTO

1 2.27. ALESSO BALDOVINETTI. Annunciation. 1466-67. Fresco and panel, width of chapel wall 15 1 9 " (4.8 m). m. Chapel of the Cardinal of
Portugal, S. Miniato, Florence. Commissioned by the executors of the will of the Cardinal of Portugal. See fig. 12.13.

Baldovinetti was the choice when, in 1466, the execu-
tors of the Cardinal of Portugal needed a painter to deco-
rate the walls, lunettes, and spandrels of his burial chapel
(see figs. 12.13-12.14). Baldovinetti’s Annunciation (fig.
12.27) is placed over the exquisite throne that faces the
cardinal^ tomb; because of the cardinal’s death it will
terna in perpetually empty. Again Baldovinetti had to
experiment, possibly because of pressure to finish the
paintings rapidly. While the background of cypresses and
cedars is painted in fresco, the wall, bench, and figures
we re painted on an unprimed oak panel, probably in the

artist’s studio in the winter months of 1466-67. Here and
there the color has peeled away to show the grain.

Francesco di Stefano (c. 1422-1457), known as
Francesco Pesellino, was probably a pupil of Fra Filippo
Lippi. He was not an innovator, but his style represents a
synthesis of the developments we have been studying, and
his surviving works — despite his early death — indicate that
he had many patrons. His panel of The Triumphs of Love,
Chastity , and Death (fig. 12.28) and its companion, The
Triumphs of Fame , Time, and Eternity , originally deco-
rated a pair of large chests known as cassoni (for a later

ART IN FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI I • 3 X 5

example, see fig. 13.17). Their themes are derived from
Petrarch’s poem The Triumphs , written c. 1360-70. The
chests are probably those identified as The Triumphs of
Petrarch and listed, without the name of the painter, in the
1492 Medici Palace inventory. They were located in the
bedchamber occupied by Lorenzo il Magnifico, along with
Uccello’s Battle of San Romano panels (see figs.
11.5-11.6).

In Florence during the fourteenth, fifteenth, and six-
teenth centuries, such chests were commissioned to cele-
brate a betrothal, and they would have been carried
through the streets as a demonstration of the wealth of the
families. It is possible that these chests were made for the
wedding of Piero de’ Medici to Lucrezia Tornabuoni in
1444. As storage places for clothing, such chests were
heavily used, and as a result their lavish frameworks, with
classicizing pilasters and pawed feet, are usually lost. The
paintings that survive the dismembering of the chests are
often inappropriately framed and displayed as Renaissance
works of art hanging on museum walls. Pesellino’s two
panels show the damage that resulted when the chests were

locked or unlocked and heavy keys banged against them.
The fact that they were carelessly treated in this way prob-
ably indicates that, as taste changed, the paintings were
considered to be old-fashioned and unimportant in both
style and iconographic message.

Petrarch’s Triumphs were a popular subject for cassoni
and other decorations in Quattrocento Florence, in part
because they provided a decorative way of exemplifying
virtuous behavior. Pesellino’s panels are among the earliest
known representations of the theme, and among the few
that include all six triumphs. In the grouping depicted
here, three carts topped by allegorical figures are pulled
by various animals. Atop the cart of Love is blindfolded
Cupid, who has let an arrow fly at an unsuspecting victim.
On Chastity’s cart Cupid is shown bound and submissive
below the allegorical figure of the virtue; unicorns,
symbols of virginity, pull this cart, which is surrounded by
delicate maidens. The cart surmounted by the haggard
figure of Death comes from the opposite direction. Pulled
by two black buffaloes, it is shaped like a coffin. The
victims of Death’s scythe lie on the ground around the cart.

316 *

THE QUATTROCENTO

Winter is the season of Death, as is evident in the barren
landscape behind this cart. Petrarch’s poem presents a
sequence of conquests, with Love conquered by Chastity,
Chastity defeated by Death, Death by Fame, Fame by
Time, and Time, in the end, conquered by Eternity. This
sequence helps to explain the positions of carts in
Pesellino’s series, for while Love’s cart moves from left to
right, it is headed off by Chastity’s cart, which moves
forward, only to be cut off by Death’s cart, moving in from
the right.

Quattrocento representations of the Triumphs are espe-
cially valuable because they give us some idea of the
appearance of the ornamented carts that were common in
Florentine Renaissance civic pageants and processions.
The visual, moral, and educational impact of these travel-
ing displays on the populace of the city should not be
underestimated. They were probably more noticed and dis-
cussed than many an altarpiece, masterpiece or not, tucked
away in a family chapel.

Other popular subjects for cassoni were the Garden of
Love, tales from Boccaccio, the Seven Virtues and the

Seven Arts, scenes of battle or justice, and themes from
Homer, Livy, and Virgil. Whatever the subject, the intent
was usually didactic, and often directed specifically toward
the female members of the household. The insides of the
lids, which would be seen only by the members of the
household and servants, were sometimes painted with a
nude female figure in one and an almost nude male figure
in the other; these were probably intended to represent
classical figures such as Paris and Venus. Many botteghe of
the mid-Quattrocento specialized in the production of
cassoni , and because they were largely painted by assis-
tants, many of the surviving examples are difficult to
attribute to a particular painter or workshop. That
Pesellino can be identified as the painter of this pair sup-
ports the proposal that these luxury products were made
for a Medici wedding.

Pesellino’s style demonstrates a mastery of the tech-
niques that the artists of the earlier decades of the Quat-
trocento had developed. Later Florentine artists used the
techniques and style established by their predecessors as a
foundation for new developments, as we shall see.

12.28. FRANCESCO PESELLINO. The Triumphs of Love, Chastity, and Death, c. 1444. Cassone panel, I6V2 x 6IV4" (42 x 154 cm). Isabella
Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston.

Pesellino, who was in partnership for a period with two other painters, had a bottega on the Corso degli Adimari, a street heavily populated with
painters’ workshops. It was to this street that a potential patron might gravitate when looking for an artist.

ART IN FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI I

3 L 7

ART IN

A t the beginning of the final third of the
Quattrocento, few of the innovators who
had founded Florentine Renaissance art
were still alive. Of those who were,
Uccello was not working, and Luca della
Robbia was old and his style had become repetitive. Piero
della Francesca was painting in Urbino and Borgo Sanse-
polcro, and Alberti was designing buildings for Florence
and Mantua. The new generation of artists enjoyed what
appears, in view of the general economic decline, to have
been extravagant patronage from the great Florentine fam-
ilies. In addition, Flemish oil technique made an impact
with the arrival of a large northern altarpiece in the city
(see fig. 13.32). The period was dominated by five artists:
Antonio del Pollaiuolo, Andrea del Verrocchio, Alessandro
Botticelli, Filippino Lippi, and Domenico del Ghirlandaio.

All five were well acquainted with the methods of
depicting space, form, and light discovered by their prede-
cessors. But new fields remained for exploration, and the
leading artists set out to investigate them. Professor Hartt
defined the three broad stylistic directions explored by
these artists as “Science, Poetry, and Prose.” While the
actual situation is somewhat more complex, these cate-
gories provide a useful way to understand the late Quat-
trocento. That all three flourished reveals that Florentine
patrons supported a variety of different styles.

As Hartt defined it, the first of these tendencies begins
with the premise that all nature is one, that plant, animal,
and human physiology are as worthy of study as the prin-

FLORENCE UNDER
THE MEDICI II

ciples of form, space, and light, and that motion, growth,
decay, and dissolution are more characteristic of our world
than mathematical relationships or, indeed, any other
apparently enduring verity. The greatest exponent of this
vitalistic, animistic, scientific trend is Pollaiuolo, but
similar concerns motivated Verrocchio as well, if to a less
marked degree. These two artists are the only two painter-
sculptors of the period; they are also the most original
sculptors. Pollaiuolo seems to have appealed especially to
the elite of Lorenzo de’ Medici’s circle.

The second current is concerned less with the outer
world than with the life of the spirit. The artists of this
lyrical, poetic, romantic current often emphasized the
abstract values of line and preferred subjects that express
emotional yearnings. The unchallenged leader in this
movement is Botticelli, but Filippino Lippi at times keeps
pace with him and at times goes beyond him into the
realms of fantasy. This second current seems to have
pleased the Medici less than it did those in their circle,
especially the Neoplatonic philosophers.

The third trend emphasizes the here and now. The
master here was Ghirlandaio. The foregrounds of his reli-
gious narratives are filled with contemporary Florentines,
while the backgrounds show how Florence looked or how
he thought it should look. Prose, not poetry, was the aim;
his representations are descriptive, well-balanced, meas-
ured, composed, and intelligible. This third style seems to
have appealed especially to the well-to-do citizen without
intellectual pretenses — the successful merchant or banker.

Opposite: 13.1. DOMENICO DEL GHIRLANDAIO. Fresco cycle of the legend of St. Francis. 1483-86. Size of chapel: 12 '2" deep x 17'2"
wide (3.7 x 5.25 m). Sassetti Chapel, Sta. Trinita, Florence. Commissioned by Francesco Sassetti. The unusual choice of sibyls for the chapel’s
ceiling is probably in honor of Francesco’s daughter, who was named Sibilla. The basalt tombs at the sides are attributed to Giuliano da Sangallo.
The altarpiece, also by Ghirlandaio, is the Nativity and Adoration of the Shepherds (see fig. 13.37). See also fig. 13.36.

ART IN FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI II * 3 I 9

Antonio del Pollaiuolo

Antonio del Pollaiuolo (1431/32-1498) excels in subjects
of action, especially themes from mythology in which his
naturalism can be expressed. His treatments of scriptural
themes sometimes take on a fierce air that seems to rein-
terpret the religious content. Pollaiuolo means “poultry-
keeper,” perhaps a reference to his father’s or another
ancestor’s occupation. Antonio began as a goldsmith and
designer of embroideries with gold and silver thread. As
one would expect, he is adept at linear precision, but his
fascination with the figure in motion is a surprise. No
artist since Hellenistic times had treated this theme with
anything approaching his ability. Andrea del Castagno,
who greatly influenced him, had tried in his David shield
(see fig. 11.16), but his attempt seems stiff when compared
with the strong movement of Pollaiuolo’s figures.

About 1460 Antonio painted three large pictures repre-
senting the Labors of Hercules that are listed in the 1492
inventory of the Medici Palace. Hercules, a favorite
Florentine hero, appeared on the seal of the republic in the
late Duecento and is even represented among the reliefs
by Andrea Pisano on the Campanile. Pollaiuolo’s three
paintings were among the works moved to the Palazzo dei
Priori after the expulsion of the Medici, which suggests
that they may have had a sharp political content. The

paintings were among the first large-scale Renaissance
works devoted to mythology. Because they were painted
on canvas (unusual at this time; see fig. 13.24), it is possi-
ble that they originally functioned as banners for a festival
or tournament. The originals are lost, but Pollaiuolo’s tiny
panels of Hercules and the Hydra and Hercules and
Antaeus (figs. 13.2-13.3) probably preserve two of the
large compositions.

As in Piero della Francesca’s Montefeltro portraits (see
fig. 11.31), the figures are silhouetted against earth and
sky. But while Piero’s figures project their control over
nature, Pollaiuolo’s seem to erupt from nature and to be
pitted against it in mortal combat. Compositionally, the
necks and tail of the hydra are counterparts of the winding
river. Hercules seems almost as feral as the lion whose skin
he wears and no less cruel than Antaeus, whose strength
derives from his mother, the Earth. It seems that Pollaiuolo
chose to represent Hercules not as a glorious hero, easily
superior to the forces of evil that he is vanquishing, but as
a being who accomplished his labors only with great
effort. In rendering the human figure, Pollaiuolo avoided
its potential nobility, emphasizing instead the strain of
muscular activity. His bodies seem pushed to their physical
limits. Where and how he studied bodies in motion is
unknown, but there is evidence that suggests that he dis-
sected corpses to understand how muscles, tendons, and

Far left: 13.2. ANTONIO
DEL POLLAIUOLO.
Hercules and the Hydra.
c. 1460. Panel, 6 3 /4 x 4 S M "
(17.5 x 12 cm). Uffizi
Gallery, Florence. Probably
commissioned for the
Medici Palace.

Left: 13.3. ANTONIO
DEL POLLAIUOLO.
Hercules and Antaeus.
c. 1460. Panel, 6 V 4 x 3 3 / 4 "
(16 x 9 cm). Uffizi Gallery,
Florence. Probably
commissioned for the
Medici Palace.

3 2 0

THE QUATTROCENTO

bones are interrelated. Pollaiuolo lets our eyes wander over
the rich tapestry of the backgrounds: the Arno Valley in
Hercules and the Hydra with a microscopic Florence at the
extreme left, and the seacoast in Hercules and Antaeus ,
with a little city at the right and mountains above.

Probably during the 1470s, Pollaiuolo repeated the
Antaeus composition in a small bronze group (fig. 13.4)
that broke the rules followed by earlier sculptors. While
the contours of previous statues and groups had been
restricted by the notion of an ideal composition, in Pol-
laiuolo’s sculpture figures can move in any direction neces-
sitated by their actions. Antonio Rossellino had led the
way, in the angels holding the Madonna tondo above the
tomb of the Cardinal of Portugal (see fig. 12.14), but his
figures were still constrained by the composition of the
monument. Pollaiuolo’s composition is determined by the
actions of the figures, its contours defined by flying legs
and arms, clutching toes, noses, open mouths, even unruly
curls. For one of the first times since antiquity, the space
surrounding a sculptural group is electrified by the energies
developed within.

In his engraved Battle of the Nudes (fig. 13.5), the
largest Florentine print of the fifteenth century, Pollaiuolo
sets out to demonstrate his understanding of human
anatomy. This print was widely circulated (more than forty
copies survive, as well as a German woodcut copy), and as

13.5. ANTONIO DEL
POLLAIUOLO. Battle of the
Nudes . c. 1470-75. Engraving
and drypoint (first state),
15 1 /8 x 23 1 /4" (38.4x59.1 cm).
Cleveland Museum of Art.

This work is Antonio’s only
known engraving, but his skill in
the technique is not surprising,
given his training as a goldsmith.
The Latin signature, OPUS
ANTONII POLLAIOLI
FLORENTINE guaranteed that
Pollaiuolo would receive credit
for this work; this is the first
Italian print to be signed. The
particular print shown here is
the only surviving example of
the “first state.” After this print
was made, Pollaiuolo reworked
the plate slightly and all other
prints that survive represent the
“second state.”

Above: 13.4. ANTONIO DEL POLLAIUOLO. Hercules and
Antaeus. Probably 1470s. Bronze, height 18" (46 cm) (including
base). Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence. Probably commis-
sioned by a member of the Medici family for the Medici Palace.

ART IN FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI II

3 2 1

13.6. ANTONIO DEL POLLAIUOLO. Dance of the Nudes (portion). Late 1460s.
Fresco underdrawing. Villa La Gallina, Florence. Probably commissioned by Jacopo and
Giovanni di Orsino Lanfredini.

a result it probably had a greater influence than any of
Pollaiuolo’s other works. The unifying themes appear to be
struggle and death, but no specific narrative subject has
been determined and perhaps none was intended; this may
be an early example of a work created as a demonstration
of artistic skill. At the lower left a nude is about to dispatch
a prostrate foe, but his victim plants a foot in his groin and
aims a dagger at his eyes. Two swordsmen in the fore-
ground may well dispose of each other, as will the figures
just behind them, armed with swords and axes. At the
right a man withdraws his sword from the side of his dying
enemy, unaware that he is about to be slaughtered by the
uplifted ax of a man behind him, who in turn does not
notice the arrow aimed at him by the archer at the upper
left. The composition of intertwined figures in superim-
posed registers that indicate depth may have been sug-
gested by the many ancient Roman sarcophagi available
in Tuscany and Rome. Pollaiuolo sets his figures against a
background of vegetation that includes olive trees and
grapevines. The expressions of pain or cruelty on the faces
of the figures convey a horror that has its counterpart
in the torments of hell seen in representations of the
Last Judgment.

Equally unrestrained but of a completely different char-
acter is the dance of nude figures with which Pollaiuolo

decorated a room in the Villa La Gallina, near Florence
(fig. 13.6). The painted surface is lost and the surviving
underdrawing has been enhanced by a repainted dark
background. The figure at the left moves in a pose fre-
quently seen in ancient sculpture or cameos, but the other
poses seem to be derived from direct observation. The wild
and even bawdy nature of the movements of these figures
reveals another side of Renaissance culture than the one
epitomized by the altarpieces and private devotional pic-
tures we have been studying. Those works are more likely
to survive than secular decorations such as this one, and
although this work is unique in Florentine Quattrocento
art, it is not impossible that other works referring to
human sexuality may have been created during this period;
the emphasis on love in the poetry of the age supports such
an interpretation. References to sexuality will become
more common in the Cinquecento. However these figures
are interpreted, this foot-stomping dance seems especially
appropriate for a country villa.

Pollaiuolo’s grandest surviving religious work, a monu-
mental altarpiece of St. Sebastian (fig. 13.7), is a milestone
in Renaissance art. The use of the triangle as a basis for
a composition is not a new idea (see Masaccio’s Trinity ,
fig. 8.21, for example), but Antonio’s triangle seems
less imposed on the figures than the product of their

3 2 2

THE QUATTROCENTO

13.7. ANTONIO DEL POLLAIUOLO (and PIERO DEL POLLAIUOLO). St Sebastian. 1474-75. Panel, 97" x 6'8" (2.92 x 2.03 m).
National Gallery, London. Commissioned by the Pucci family for the Oratory of S. Sebastiano (the Pucci family burial chapel) at
SS. Annunziata, Llorence.

The patron may have been Antonio Pucci, who built the oratory in the early 1450s. The church of the Annunziata possessed a relic presumed to
be the arm bone of St. Sebastian; by devoting this altarpiece to St. Sebastian, the Pucci were allowed to house this relic in their chapel. It has been
argued that Piero painted the body and head of the saint.

ART IN FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI II

3 2 3

movements: the minute the last arrow is discharged and
the bowmen leave, the triangle will dissolve. Antonio may
have left the painting of the saint to his brother Piero, but
the bowmen became a showcase to demonstrate Antonio’s
skill. The positions of strain as the two crossbowmen wind
their bows seem to display everything Antonio knew about
muscular tension, while at the same time revealing his
mastery of foreshortening. Passages of underdrawing
visible through the thin paint layer show that Antonio at
first drew the figures nude, only clothing them after the
exact positions of their limbs were determined — a process
that underlines the importance he allotted to accurate
anatomical construction.

In reality there are only three poses among the six
archers. Pollaiuolo reversed each figure, but more as if he
had turned around a clay model than as if he had followed
the common painter’s practice of reversing a cartoon.
Sculptor that he was, he may have done exactly that,
although the surfaces of the bodies are so convincing that
it looks as if living men posed for them while he was doing
the painting. The effect of vivacity is increased by the scale,
for the figures in the foreground are nearly life-sized.
Michelangelo used the pose of the nude crossbowman for
one of the nude youths on the Sistine Chapel Ceiling and,
much later, for an angel hauling two souls into heaven in
his Last Judgment (see fig. 20.1). Antonio’s incisive
contour, a kind of analytic line that describes forms in a
way that helps us to understand how they revolve in depth,
leads directly to Michelangelo.

The Arno Valley landscape in the background gave Pol-
laiuolo an opportunity to exercise his skill in the rendering
of nature. The triumphal arch, included to suggest the his-
toric period when Sebastian was martyred, is adorned with
battle reliefs and the patron’s Moor’s-head coat of arms. In
the distance, enveloped in nature, should lie Rome, which
Antonio had yet to visit. He substituted Florence, with the
occasional hint of a Roman theater, dome, or obelisk; the
shapes of the hills are taken from those near Florence. The
Arno sweeps into view, moving too rapidly to offer reflec-
tions in the manner of Piero della Francesca’s still waters.
As in his altarpiece for the chapel of the Cardinal of
Portugal (see fig. 12.13), Pollaiuolo has used oil glazes to
convey distant haze, soft foliage, and rushing water. The
freedom of his brushstroke, unexpected at this date, is
an indication of how quickly Italian painters moved
away from the precise, controlled brushstrokes of their
Flemish contemporaries.

Pollaiuolo’s ability to render the transitory effects of
nature is also displayed in his Apollo and Daphne (fig.
13.8), a tiny mythological subject perhaps created to deco-
rate a piece of furniture. Before the shimmering curves of
the Arno River, the god rushes across the meadow in

13.8. ANTONIO DEL POLLAIUOLO. Apollo and Daphne.
c. 1470-80. Panel, ll 5 / 8 x 7 7 /s" (29.5 x 20 cm). National Gallery,
London.

pursuit of Daphne. As he embraces her, he knows defeat,
for her father, a river god, has answered her prayer for sal-
vation. Daphne’s left leg has taken root, her arms have
become branches, and in another minute she will be fully
transformed into a laurel tree. Perhaps this tiny picture
was created as an allegory of the invincibility of Lorenzo
de’ Medici’s government, for the laurel was his symbol and
also that of his second cousin and neighbor, Lorenzo di
Pierfrancesco de’ Medici.

Pollaiuolo’s Portrait of a Young Woman (fig. 13.9) is one
of the last profile portraits of a woman to be produced in
the Italian Quattrocento, for the type would soon give way
to the three-quarter or full-face view already common for
male portraits. But Antonio delights in the profile, which
comes to vibrant life in his hands. His analytic line
responds to every nuance of shape as it models the sitter’s
delicate features.

3 2 4

THE QUATTROCENTO

13.9. ANTONIO DEL POLLAIUOLO. Portrait of a Young Woman,
1467-70. Panel, 18 Vs x 13 3 /8 n (46 x 34 cm). Museo Poldi Pezzoli, Milan.

By the last decade of the Quattrocento, Pollaiuolo’s
influence in Florence and elsewhere was enormous. In
1489 Lorenzo de’ Medici described him as the leading
master of the city: “Perhaps, by the opinion of every intel-
ligent person, there was never a better one.” Antonio’s
final commissions were the papal tombs of Sixtus IV and
his successor Innocent VIII. The huge bronze tomb of
Sixtus IV (fig. 13.10) occupied the artist and his shop for
nine years after the pope’s death in 1484. The portrait of
the recumbent pope emphasizes his hawklike features and
sagging flesh. He is surrounded by reliefs representing the
seven traditional Virtues (Charity, Hope, Prudence,

Fortitude, Faith, Temperance, and Justice). Below these, on
the sides of the tomb, are allegorical female figures of the
ten Liberal Arts to reference the pope’s humanist and intel-
lectual interests: Philosophy, Theology, Rhetoric,

Grammar, Arithmetic, Astrology, Dialectic, Geometry,
Music, and Perspective. It is noteworthy that Perspective
has entered this august company (fig. 13.11). She holds a
book and an astrolabe, as well as an oak branch, because
the pope was a member of the Della Rovere family, whose
name means oak. The astrolabe suggests that during the
Renaissance navigation and exploration were considered
part of the discipline of perspective.

ART IN FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI II

3 2 5

13.10. ANTONIO DEL
POLLAIUOLO. Tomb of Pope
Sixtus IV della Rovere. 1484-93.
Bronze, length 14 '7" (4.45 m). Museo
Storico Artistico, St. Peter’s, Rome.
Commissioned by Cardinal Giuliano
della Rovere for Sixtus IV della
Rovere’s burial chapel in Old St.
Peter’s, Rome.

13.11. ANTONIO DEL
POLLAIUOLO. Perspective,
detail of fig. 13.10.

326 • THE QUATTROCENTO

Andrea del Verrocchio

Although “Verrocchio,” the nickname of Andrea di
Michele Cioni (1435-1488), means “true eye,” it refers
not to exceptional powers of vision but to a Florentine
family who were his early patrons. His training in the arts
of painting and sculpture is still uncertain. Verrocchio’s
most notable painting is the Baptism of Christ (figs. 13.12,
16.11), for which his pupil Leonardo da Vinci painted

some remarkable passages that will be discussed later (see
p. 450). This is perhaps the first time this subject, which
was important in Florence because John the Baptist is the
city’s patron saint, was treated in an altarpiece, and
Verrocchio’s composition is suitably simple and grand. The
figures are loosely posed in front of wide views into a
distant landscape. The bony forms, the emphasis on
muscles and tendons, and the play of light over torsos,
limbs, and hands are analyzed with the care of Pollaiuolo

13.12. ANDREA DEL VERROCCHIO and LEONARDO DA VINCI. Baptism of Christ. Begun 1468 or 1471;
completed c. 1476. Panel, 69 V2 x 59V2" (1.8 x 1.52 m). Uffizi Gallery, Florence. Commissioned for S. Salvi, Florence.

ART IN FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI II * 327

but without his interest in movement. The Baptist looks at
Christ with intense devotion, while Christ looks down-
ward and inward.

The Baptism is closely related to Verrocchio’s Christ and
St. Thomas at Orsanmichele (fig. 13.13; see also fig. 7.9),

13.13. ANDREA DEL VERROCCHIO. Christ and St. Thomas.
c. 1466-83. Bronze, height of Christ 7'6 l fi" (2.3 m). Orsanmichele,
Florence. (Marble niche by Donatello, c. 1422-25; commissioned by
the Parte Guelfa. ) Verrocchio’s group was commissioned by the
Tribunale di Mercanzia. This historic photograph shows the group in
the niche for which it was commissioned; it has now been replaced
with a copy.

an impressive demonstration of his skill in composition,
knowledge of anatomy, and depth of feeling. The group is
enclosed in a marble tabernacle commissioned in the early
1420s by the Parte Guelfa, then the dominant force in Flo-
rence, and was designed by Donatello to enclose his gilded
bronze statue of St. Louis of Toulouse. With the rise of the
Medici, the Parte Guelfa was eclipsed, and in 1463 their
niche was sold to the magistrates of the Mercanzia, which
acted as a tribunal to adjudicate disputes between mer-
chants. Donatello’s statue was removed. The subject of
Verrocchio’s group may have been chosen because the
Mercanzia insisted that they were engaged in a search for
truth and required, as had Thomas, tangible evidence.

In interpreting the subject, Verrocchio clearly wanted to
bring out the emotional intensity of the moment when the
resurrected Christ invites Thomas to confirm his identity
by touching the wound in his side. Thomas stands slightly
outside the niche, overlapping the left column, and seems
to be moving inward toward Christ, who is posed on an
elevated base. To fit into the limited space, the figures had
to be smaller than Donatello’s St. Louis. When they were
removed for safekeeping during World War II, it was dis-
covered that they have no backs; from behind they are
hollow shells of bronze.

Drama is centered less in the expressions on the calm
faces than in the calculated space between the figures — the
wound revealed by one hand, approached by another on a
diagonal. The drapery patterns are not used to indicate the
pose, as they had been in earlier Quattrocento sculptures;
rather, the complex folds shatter the forms into facets of
light and dark, the sculptural counterpart of Pollaiuolo’s
free brushwork, conveying the rhythm of the figures but
not their mass. According to sources, Donatello’s device of
using cloth soaked in hardened slip (see p. 190) was emu-
lated by Verrocchio, who substituted plaster for clay. The
resulting restless patterns of the drapery and the rippling
curls communicate the excitement inherent in this event.
Words on the border of Christ’s mantle state, “Because
thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that
have not seen, and yet have believed” (John 20:29). A
recent cleaning of this impressive work has revealed the
high level of Verrocchio’s craftsmanship and detailing.
When the group was placed in its niche in 1483, the diarist
Luca Landucci described the head of Christ as “the most
beautiful head of the Savior that has yet been made.”

Verrocchio’s Portrait of a Lady with Flowers (fig. 13.14)
is the first three-quarter-length sculpted portrait since
antiquity. When compared to earlier painted portraits, it
offers a new simplicity. The woman’s hair, parted in the
middle, is drawn to the sides and then allowed to escape in
clustered curls. The costume is an unadorned tunic. The
inclusion of her sensitive hands allows Verrocchio to

328

THE QUATTROCENTO

13.14. ANDREA DEL VERROCCHIO. Portrait of a Lady
with Flowers. Late 1470s. Marble, height 23 5 /s" (61 cm).
Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence. The sitter has often
been identified, but without proof, as Lucrezia Donati, mistress
of Lorenzo de’ Medici.

comment more fully on her personality; with grace she
holds a bouquet of flowers to her chest. This is the new
naturalism of the 1470s, expressed in every detail, and sug-
gesting in marble the nature of flesh even where covered by
what seems to be a translucent garment.

Verrocchio’s bronze David (fig. 13.15) is another
demonstration of Verrocchio’s skill in representing textures
and details. He may have conceived the figure as a
response to Donatello’s bronze David (see fig. 10.22), then
also in the Medici Palace. Verrocchio avoids the nudity of
Donatello’s interpretation, clothing his figure in a leather
jerkin and skirt. This more modest version seems to fit the
restraint characteristic of the later Medici. The difficult
contrapposto and uncertain expression of Donatello’s
figure is here replaced with a calm and relaxed David
whose face has a trace of a smile.

Verrocchio’s final work is also his grandest. The condot-
tiere Bartolommeo Colleoni (d. 1475) left a considerable
sum of money to the Venetian Republic for a bronze eques-
trian monument to himself to be set up in Piazza San

13.15. ANDREA DEL VERROCCHIO. David, c. 1470s. Bronze,
with traces of gilded details, height 497s" (1.26 m). Museo Nazionale
del Bargello, Florence. Commissioned by Lorenzo de’ Medici for the
Medici Palace. Sold to the Signoria of the city in 1476 for 145 florins.

Marco, center of Venetian life. The authorities relegated
the statue to a less important square, in front of the
Scuola di San Marco (fig. 13.16), a solution that con-
formed to the letter of Colleoni’s stipulation, if not the
spirit. When and how Verrocchio received the commission
is not clear, but in 1483 a monk recorded seeing on
exhibition in Venice three colossal horses by three

ART IN FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI II • 3 29

13.16. ANDREA DEL VERROCCHIO (completed by ALESSANDRO LEOPARDI).
Equestrian Monument of Bartolommeo Colleoni. c. 1481-96. Bronze, height approx. 13' (4 m)
without the base, fi Campo SS. Giovanni e Paolo (Zanipolo), Venice. Commissioned by the
Venetian Republic with funds left by Bartolommeo Colleoni.

competing masters. Verrocchio died before he could cast
his clay model, and the bronze version was made by the
Venetian founder Alessandro Leopardi, who also designed
the statue’s base. The visual evidence suggests that in many
details Leopardi lost the vitality that Verrocchio would
probably have achieved had he been able to do the chasing
himself; this is particularly true of the ornament,
mane, and tail. However, as one comes upon the
statue while crossing a little bridge over a canal, the effect
is stupendous.

Verrocchio abandoned the static concept of the eques-
trian monument seen in earlier examples (see fig. 10.23).
Now the general, helmeted and armed with a mace, seems
to be urging his charger into battle. In mass and silhouette
the group commands the surrounding space. The horse’s
left foreleg steps freely, his veins and muscles swell, his
head is turned, and his muzzle drawn in. The rider stands
in the stirrups, his torso twisted in opposition to the
movement of the horse’s head, dilated eyes staring, jaw
clenched. The effect is dramatic and commanding.

330

THE QUATTROCENTO

Renaissance Cassoni

We studied a painting removed from a cassone , a Floren-
tine wedding chest, earlier when we looked at the works of
Francesco Pesellino (see fig. 12.28). Here we illustrate an

example of a complete cassone , one of a pair (fig. 13.17).
In this case we know who commissioned the work and its
pendant, who the artists were, who the bridal couple were,
and how much it cost. The painters were Jacopo del Sellaio
and Biagio d’Antonio, and the woodworker who built the

13.17. JACOPO DEL SELLAIO and BIAGIO D’ANTONIO, with the woodworker ZANOBI DI DOMENICO. One of a pair of
cassoni made for the Morelli-Nerli wedding in 1472. Tempera paint on wood, gold leaf, height 83 V 2 " (212 cm); width 75 " (193 cm);
depth 30" (76.2 cm). Courtauld Gallery, London.

The lower scene is Camillus Defeating the Gauls , the upper, Horatius Codes Defending the Bridge against the Etruscans . The subjects found on
the pendant are Mucius Scaevola Shows his Courage by Burning his Right Hand and Camillus with the Schoolmaster of Falerii; the end figures
represent virtues. This cassone and its pendant are rare examples in which the attached backpieces ( spalliere ) survive intact, although some of the
framing and woodwork have been restored. When Donna Vaggia di Tanai di Francesco di Nerli married Lorenzo di Matteo di Morello in 1472,
she brought a dowry of 2,000 florins. The pair of cassoni were commissioned by Lorenzo for approximately 61 florins, about the same as the
annual salary for a skilled laborer; the fact that this was the largest sum Lorenzo spent on a single object in his house indicates the importance of
cassoni in the culture of the Florentine Renaissance.

ART IN FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI II

3 3 I

chest was Zanobi di Domenico. Such collaboration was
common in the Florentine workshop tradition, and may
have been frequent when works had to be finished for a
certain occasion, such as a wedding. The choice of themes
drawn from ancient history is in the cassoni tradition; here
all four scenes represent moments of heroism or good judg-
ment and would seem to be directed toward the groom,
who commissioned the two chests. The figures on the sides
are seated allegories of virtues. The addition of a back
panel (the spalliera ) here, which allows for a second nar-
rative scene on each chest, shows a later development in
cassoni design and indicates the growing elegance charac-
teristic of the Florentine home in the later Quattrocento.

Alessandro Botticelli

The leader of our second, poetic current in later Quattro-
cento Florentine art is Alessandro (or Sandro) Botticelli
(1445-1510). His given name was Alessandro di Mariano
Filipepi, but his older brother, a successful broker, was
nicknamed “il Botticello” (“the Keg”). Sandro appears to
have been cared for by this brother, and it was therefore
natural to call him “del Botticello,” which in time became
“Botticelli.” In his art he withdrew from the world around
him and moved away from the physical vitality that char-
acterizes the works of Pollaiuolo and Verrocchio. His style
emphasized contour and line in complex and beautiful
compositions that can be compared to the many layers of
sixteenth-century polyphonic music. Nevertheless, Botti-
celli was also recognized by Fra Luca Pacioli, follower of
Piero della Francesca, as one of the great experts of per-
spective. Although his work is sometimes praised for its
gentleness, an Old Testament scene featuring the fate of
Korah, Dathan, and Abiram (see fig. 13.19) reveals the
dramatic intensity of which he was capable.

Botticelli started as an assistant to Fra Filippo Lippi, and
before Filippo died he entrusted Botticelli with the guid-
ance of his son Filippino, who was only twelve years
younger. Later, Botticelli was active in the shop of
Verrocchio, along with the young Leonardo da Vinci.
Almost from the start, however, his own style was anti-
atmospheric, antioptical, and antiscientific.

The subject of Botticelli’s Adoration of the Magi in the
Uffizi (fig. 13.18) is common in the later Quattrocento,
and Botticelli painted it at least seven times. As members
of the Company of the Magi confraternity, the Medici
family were traditionally represented as the magi (see p.
313). The aged Cosimo, who died before Botticelli’s
picture was painted, is here represented as the oldest
magus, kneeling before the Christ Child. He holds the
child’s feet, covering them with a veil that drapes over his
shoulders. This action parallels that of a priest at the bene-

diction of the sacrament, when he covers his hands with a
veil to hold the foot of a monstrance containing the
Eucharist, the body of Christ, for the adoration of the
faithful. Botticelli’s picture can be interpreted as a refer-
ence to the Florentine ritual, in which the Medici took
part; to its religious import, then, a political ingredient
must be added.

The star of Bethlehem hovers over the Virgin and Child,
who are enthroned upon a rock that hints at Calvary. A
gentle Joseph stands behind and slightly above them. By
raising these figures and placing them back from the fore-
ground, Botticelli draws us into the scene. Below the first
magus the two other magi kneel in intense conversation;
they are apparently portraits of Giovanni (d. 1463) and
Piero the Gouty (d. 1469), Cosimo ’s sons. The youth at the
extreme left, embraced by a friend as he listens to the
words of a somewhat older mentor, may be Lorenzo. At
the right, a dark-haired youth in profile, gazing down-
ward, resembles surviving portraits of Giuliano, Lorenzo’s
brother (see fig. 12.5). The faces, foreshortened from
above, below, and behind, are projected with equal sharp-
ness by means of sculptural contours and the incisive light.
The young man in the gold-colored cloak at the right, who
gazes rather arrogantly outward, has generally been
accepted as a self-portrait. Here the artist is more promi-
nent than the patron, who has been identified as the white-
haired man looking out toward us in the upper right
group. Why he chose to honor the Medici in Botticelli’s
painting remains unclear.

Botticelli’s first monumental fresco commission was to
depict rebels of the Pazzi Conspiracy on the walls of the
Florentine Customs House (see p. 297). These were later
destroyed, but possibly their success (certainly not their
subject, as Pope Sixtus IV was implicated in the conspir-
acy) led to Botticelli being called to Rome in 1481. He
went with his fellow Florentines Cosimo Rosselli and
Domenico del Ghirlandaio as well as Perugino, from
Perugia (see p. 369). The commission was to participate in
the decoration of a chapel constructed by Pope Sixtus IV
della Rovere, which was named the Cappella Sistina in
honor of its patron Sixtus (Sisto in Italian), hence the
English name, Sistine Chapel.

The chapel was intended to accommodate not only the
Masses and other services of the papal court, but also the
meetings of cardinals. Today only tourists with a special
interest in Quattrocento painting manage to detach them-
selves from Michelangelo’s later frescoes on the ceiling and
altar wall to contemplate the works on the side walls (see
fig. 14.17). These scenes from the lives of Moses and
Christ were chosen, at least in part, to represent episodes
in the Old and New Testaments that justified the claims
of the papacy to universality. Like Roman cycles in

3 3 2 ♦ THE QUATTROCENTO

13.18. SANDRO BOTTICELLI. Adoration of the Magi, c. 1476. Panel, 43 3 A x 52 3 /4 M (1.1 x 1.34 m). Uffizi Gallery, Florence. Commissioned
by the merchant Guasparre dal Lama, whose name, the Italian version of Caspar, explains the choice of subject. It was placed on the altar of his
modest funerary chapel at Sta. Maria Novella, Florence (see fig. 2.35). The altar was dedicated on January 6, the feast day of the three kings.

general, they may well contain additional layers of
meaning, including references to the particular patron.
Vasari argued that Botticelli was in charge of the decora-
tive program, but an attempt has also been made to place
Perugino in this role.

If anyone exercised a commanding position with regard
to the program, it must have been the pope. Moreover,
some credit ought to be given to the common sense of the
artists, none of whom was likely to want his paintings to
appear out of harmony with the others. In the chapel of the
Cardinal *of Portugal, for example (see fig. 12.13), visitors
are still struck by the decorative beauty of the ensemble,
yet the architect died before the work was begun, the

sculptors and painters represented conflicting tendencies,
the paintings were an afterthought, and no one artist
stayed on the job from beginning to end. In the case of
the Sistine Chapel, it is probably safe to suppose that the
pope and his advisers determined the subjects and gave
the artists guidelines as to unity, leaving the artists to
work out among themselves consistency of scale, horizon
line, palette, and the like. On closer examination,
however, it becomes evident that none of the original
four artists — or Pintoricchio or Luca Signorelli, who were
later brought onto the project — was willing to sacrifice
completely his artistic identity. Discrepancies of expression
and even of compositional principles are evident, and

ART IN FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI II • 333

none of the artists left Rome with a trace of any of
the others in his style.

In each of the surviving frescoes of the Quattrocento
cycle (two would be destroyed by Michelangelo when he
frescoed the chapel’s altar wall with the Last Judgment ; see
fig. 20.1), the foreground is almost filled with figures that
narrate the principal incidents and are scaled at roughly
two-fifths the height of the scene. The vanishing point for
the background landscapes — which should govern the
recession of the architecture as well, but does not always
do so — is placed one-fifth above their heads. This two-
fifths, one-fifth, two-fifths horizontal division of the
scenes, crossed by a vertical division into thirds, is
respected throughout the series. With typical Florentine
rigor, Botticelli treats each of his scenes as a kind of
triptych, grouping the figures and vertical masses such as
architecture and trees into a central block flanked by
two wings.

Botticelli’s Punishment of Korah , Dathan, and Abiram
(fig. 13.19) narrates how these three men challenged
Aaron’s right to the high priesthood. When they inappro-
priately assumed his role by offering incense to the Lord,

they were swallowed up by the earth (Numbers 16:1-40).
This unusual subject would appeal to a patron interested
in asserting his power, and the fresco is opposite Perugino’s
Christ Giving the Keys to St. Peter (see fig. 14.16), another
scene emphasizing papal authority. In Botticelli’s fresco,
the story, narrated from left to right, is fused with other
incidents concerning Moses. At the left the earth opens up;
only two figures are shown — one must already have van-
ished — and flames arise to consume them. In the center, six
figures offering false fire to the Lord are consumed by fire
from heaven. On the right Moses seeks refuge from the
seditious Israelites who tried to stone him. Botticelli has
added an inscription from St. Paul to his representation of
the Arch of Constantine in Rome: “And no man taketh
this honor unto himself, but he that is called of God, as
was Aaron” (Hebrews 5:4). Read together with the altar,
the punishment, and the ancient triumphal arch, the
narrative prefigures the mission of the Roman Church,
especially as Aaron wears a papal tiara as a reference to
the patron.

The rays issuing from Moses’ forehead have a curious
history. When Moses came down from Mount Sinai the

13.19. SANDRO BOTTICELLI. Punishment of Korah, Dathan , and Abiram. 1481-82. Fresco, 11'5V2" x 1 8 1 8 ^ " (3.5 x 5.7 m). Sistine
Chapel, Vatican, Rome. (For a diagram of the side walls of the chapel see fig. 14.18.) Commissioned by Pope Sixtus IV della Rovere. Botticelli
had to lodge a complaint against the pope in order to be fully paid for his work in the chapel.

3 3 4

THE QUATTROCENTO

second time, the biblical text says that rays of light shone
from his face. In translating this into Latin, St. Jerome
balked at attributing light to anyone who antedated Christ.
The Hebrew word for “rays” could also be rendered
“horns,” the translation chosen by Jerome, and so Moses
is often represented with horns. In St. Paul’s Epistle,
however, the word “rays” was allowed to stand. Botticelli’s
Moses is a compromise: two horns made of rays.

The Adoration of the Magi in Washington, D.C.
(fig. 13.20) is more classical than the Uffizi Adoration (see
fig. 13.18), and may reflect the influence of Botticelli’s stay
in Rome. The looser figural arrangements of the earlier
picture have given way to a circle in depth, open in the
foreground to give a view of the Virgin and Child. The
ruins suggest a once imposing Roman monument, with
Joseph’s new roof replacing an entablature stone about to
topple at the left. The shed’s beams recall the open timber
ceilings of the Early Christian basilicas Botticelli must have
seen in Rome.

Botticelli chose the point of view of a hypothetical spec-
tator standing at the center and well within the picture, on
a line with the two magi nearest the Madonna. The other
worshippers, and we with them, are distanced from the
scene by the width of the grassy lawn, which we instinc-
tively attempt to traverse in order to bring the architectural
perspective to a resolution. We are caught up involuntarily
in the worshippers’ movement toward the sacred figures.
Botticelli must have been aware of the teachings of the
Platonic Academy formed within the court of Lorenzo de’
Medici. One of the academy’s doctrines was the principle
of desto (desire, longing, yearning), by which the soul, in
its earthly exile, could mystically traverse the gulf separat-
ing it from its home in God. In the Washington painting,
such desto , already nascent in the Uffizi picture, activates
the figures in the composition. Because of the difficulty in
dating most of Botticelli’s works, it is unclear whether the
Washington Adoration was conceived before or after the
unfinished Adoration of the Magi by Leonardo (see fig.

13.20. SANDRO BOTTICELLI. Adoration of the Magi. c. 1478-80. Tempera and oil on poplar, 26 3 A x 40 3 /i6" (70 x 104.2 cm). National
Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (Mellon Collection). Some of the natural pigments in this painting have darkened: the greens, for example,
have become brown and the medium blues have become dark blues.

ART IN FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI II * 335

13.21. SANDRO BOTTICELLI. Madonna of the Magnificat, c. 1480. Panel, diameter
46" (120 cm). Uffizi Gallery, Florence.

16.16). In any event, the two paintings cannot be sepa-
rated by more than months, and the two Verrocchio pupils
almost certainly knew each other’s compositions. They
may even have quarreled about them, as we know they did
over perspective and landscape. In the upper right back-
ground of both images grooms are restraining unruly
horses, although Leonardo’s interpretation is more tem-
pestuous. Leonardo wrote that Botticelli claimed it was
possible to paint a landscape by throwing a sponge filled
with paint at the panel and turning the smears into land-
scape forms. From Leonardo’s point of view, these would
be poor landscapes, but to our eyes they are still accept-
able. In its contours the landscape here enhances the move-
ment of the figures, while its blue-green color provides a
foil for the strong reds, blues, and yellows of the costumes.

Botticelli’s Madonna of the Magnificat (fig. 13.21) was,
like the earlier tondo by Domenico Veneziano (see fig.
11.7), probably a wedding present or a gift made at the
time of the birth of a child. The change in diameter from
33 to 46 inches (83.8 to 120 cm) is typical of the increas-
ing size of domestic objects during the second half of the
Quattrocento, when Florentine patrons required larger
and more sumptuous objects for their homes.

Botticelli’s mastery of composition is evident in this
elegant picture. Using the circular format as a base, he
curves his figures around the periphery, leaving the center
open for a view into a delicate landscape. The two sides are
joined by the angels who reach up to place a filigree crown
on the Virgin’s head, crowning her as Queen of Heaven,
and by the fluttering folds of her transparent scarf. The

336 •

THE QUATTROCENTO

name of the picture is derived from the hymn that
the Virgin has just written in the book held open by angels:
“Behold my soul doth magnify the Lord,” words that
she spoke to Gabriel in accepting the Annunciation. As
we watch, she dips her pen in the inkpot to continue
the canticle.

Like Pollaiuolo, Botticelli was called upon to paint the
mythological subjects becoming fashionable at the court of
Lorenzo and among the Florentine patriciate. Although the
graceful figures in these paintings are depicted in Botti-
celli’s characteristic style, they have the gravity he must
have seen in ancient marble reliefs in Rome. Botticelli’s
mythologies have been explained through the writings of
the Florentine Neo-Platonists, notably Marsilio Ficino, but
the interpretations are complicated by the kaleidoscopic
nature of Neo-Platonic writings, which demonstrate how
humanists can derive different meanings from the same
ancient legend. In the following discussions, some persua-
sive elements have been selected from still-controversial
interpretations, and new elements added. Some day
perhaps a “lucky find,” as the art historian E.H. Gombrich
put it, will reveal exactly what these images were intended
to communicate.

While the gods of ancient Greece and Rome had sur-
vived in one form or another throughout the Middle Ages,
especially as personifications of the planets exercising
power over human destiny, they had lost their ancient
appearance. In Botticelli’s works they reappear on a grand
scale, without much visual resemblance to ancient forms or
representations, and with an allegorical meaning parallel-
ing that of Christian subjects. Botticelli’s Venus and Mars

(fig. 13.22), for example, has little in common with the
nude Venuses of antiquity. Here we behold a lovely young
woman, barefoot but clothed in voluminous folds that
conceal her waist. Mars, a slender youth, lies on the
ground, naked except for a strip of white cloth. While he
sleeps, four impudent baby satyrs — among the first, if not
the first, satyrs to make an appearance in Renaissance
painting — play with his armor and spear, and one of them
blows through a conch shell into his ear to demonstrate
how soundly he is sleeping.

The painting has sometimes been connected with a tour-
nament of 1475, celebrated in Poliziano’s poem La giostra ,
in which Giuliano de’ Medici received the victor’s crown
from Simonetta Vespucci. Internal evidence indeed sug-
gests a connection with the Vespucci family, Botticelli’s
neighbors, for the wasps buzzing about the head of Mars
refer to the Vespucci coat of arms (“vespucci” in Italian
means “little wasps”). Several passages from classical liter-
ature were probably used by the humanist(s) who devised
the painting’s iconography. Especially relevant is Marsilio
Ficino’s astrological characterization of Mars as “out-
standing in strength among the planets because he makes
men stronger, but Venus masters him. ... Venus ... often
checks his malignance ... she seems to master Mars, but
Mars never masters Venus.” Part of the picture’s meaning
was surely the conquering power of love, even over war,
and the subjugation of violence by the powers of culture
and the intellect. This is a lofty message, of course, but
Mars’ deep sleep can also refer to another theme common
in ancient and medieval writings: the ability of Venus — or
of any woman — to defeat the male with strenuous sexual

13.22. SANDRO BOTTICELLI. Venus and Mars. c. 1483. Panel, 27V4 x 68V4 (69 x 173.5 cm). National Gallery, London. Perhaps
commissioned by a member of the Vespucci family. The size and the shape suggest that this was a spalliera panel, painted to be placed
over a chest, bench, or some other piece of household furniture (see fig. 13.17).

ART IN FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI II * 337

activity. Mars’ sleep and Venus’ satisfied smile suggest that
such an interpretation is possible. Although it is difficult to
re-create the sense of humor of earlier periods, this inter-
pretation suggests that humor may have been a part of the
artist’s and/or patron’s original intent. Some may have con-
sidered Botticelli’s painting scandalous, but it is not unex-
pected in this period; bawdy humor about sexual activity
can be found in at least one popular Florentine Quattro-
cento print.

The setting of Botticelli’s Primavera (“Spring,” fig.
13.23) is a grove of dark orange trees, whose intertwined
branches and golden fruit fill the upper portion of the
picture. Between the trunks one glimpses the sky and, at
one point, a hint of a distant landscape. Just off-center
stands a modest figure, one hand raised as if in benedic-
tion. At the right Zephyrus, the wind god, enters the scene
in pursuit of the virgin nymph Chloris, from whose mouth
flowers seem to issue; in the legend Zephyrus rapes Chloris
and then marries her. Chloris is then transformed into
Flora, goddess of Spring, who scatters blossoms from her
flower-embroidered garment. Because the picture repre-
sents the eternal spring that flourished in Venus’ garden,
Flora is a key figure in decoding the meaning. On the left
Mercury raises his caduceus to snag and dispel the storm
clouds trying to enter the garden. The three figures dancing
in a ring are the Graces; above, the blindfolded Cupid
shoots a blazing golden arrow in their direction. The figure
in the center, so much like one of Botticelli’s Madonnas,
is Venus, goddess of Love and Beauty and also, in this
context, Marriage.

The Primavera can probably be identified with a paint-
ing documented in the town house of Lorenzo di Pier-
francesco de’ Medici in 1498. In about 1478 Marsilio
Ficino wrote a letter to Lorenzo, who was then only four-
teen or fifteen years old, in which he described the virtues
of Venus:

Venus, that is to say, Humanitas ... is a nymph of excellent
comeliness, born of heaven and more than others beloved by
God all highest. Her soul and mind are Love and Charity, her
eyes Dignity and Magnanimity, the hands Liberality and
Magnificence, the feet Comeliness and Modesty. The whole,
then, is Temperance and Honesty, Charm and Splendor. Oh,
what exquisite beauty! ... My dear Lorenzo, a nymph of such
nobility has been wholly given into your hands! If you were
to unite with her in wedlock and claim her as yours, she
would make all your years sweet.

To Ficino, then, Venus represented the moral qualities that
a cultivated Florentine patrician woman should possess.
Ficino’s passage may help to explain the restraint that
characterizes Botticelli’s elegant interpretation of Venus.

Botticelli’s chaste, modest, and submissive Venus may have
been meant as a model for Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco’s
bride, Semiramide d’Appiano. These qualities are empha-
sized in humanist writings by Alberti and Lionardo Bruni
as appropriate for the ideal woman and perfect wife. Bruni
wrote that women should especially study the Roman
poets, for “in no other writers can be found so many
examples of womanly modesty and goodness ... the finest
pattern of the wifely arts.”

The Three Graces dancing in Venus’ garden are symbols
of the beauty and grace that Venus offers to the world.
Botticelli’s interpretation of these figures suggests that he
or the patron were inspired by Alberti, who recommended
that painters try to re-create an ancient work described by
Seneca in which the Graces were shown nude or in trans-
parent garments, dancing together with intertwined hands.
Botticelli may also have been inspired by surviving sculp-
tural compositions from antiquity showing three nude
Graces, their hands joined; in one such example, one
figure is seen from the rear and the other two from the
front, as in his painting. The loose, flowing hair of Botti-
celli’s figures indicates that they are unmarried virgins.

Scholars have proposed various explanations for the
painting based on the writings of Horace, Ovid, Lucretius,
and Columella, but there are also noteworthy Florentine
elements. The Roman poet Claudian, who in the Renais-
sance was believed to have been a Florentine, wrote that
all clouds were excluded from Venus’ Garden of the Hes-
perides, where her “golden apples” (that is, oranges) grew.
Botticelli’s garden boasts no fewer than forty-two varieties
of plant common to Tuscany in the spring. Mercury, armed
and helmeted, stands guard in a pose derived from the
Davids by Donatello and Verrocchio (see figs. 10.22,
13.15). Venus, moreover, is decorously clothed and wears
the headdress of a Florentine married woman. Cleaning
has revealed the delicate lines of breath from Zephyrus’
mouth that instilled new life in the nymph Chloris, whom
he married, so that she could be reborn as Flora; this paint-
ing was appropriately placed outside the nuptial chamber
of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco, whose wedding was planned
for May 1482.

The last word about this perpetually alluring allegory
has yet to be written. For example, numerous associations
with the Medici can be made. The golden orbs of the
orange grove, so similar to the one that separates fore-
ground from background in Uccello’s San Romano panels
(see figs. 11.5-11.6), must have suggested to a Florentine
Quattrocento eye the red palle (balls) of the Medici coat of
arms. Also, Mercury’s rose-colored chlamys is strewn with
golden flames, an attribute of the god but one that also
belongs to St. Lawrence (Lorenzo). They decorate the
saint’s vestments in Fra Angelico’s San Marco altarpiece

338 .

THE QUATTROCENTO

13.23. SANDRO BOTTICELLI. Primavera. c. 1482(?). Panel, 6' 8 11 x 10'4" (2 x 3.1 m). Uffizi Gallery, Florence. Probably commissioned by
Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici for his Florentine palace at the time of his wedding.

(see fig. 9.4), made for Cosimo de’ Medici, and in many
other representations, and the meteor showers that
descend on the earth in August each year are known in
Italy as “fires of St. Lawrence” because they occur at the
time of his feast. Venus’ gown is also bordered at the neck
with golden flames, while loops of flames encircle her
breasts. Finally, Mercury also bore responsibility for
doctors, whose symbol, the caduceus, he bears; Medici
means “doctors,” and the Medici patron saints were the
doctors Cosmas and Damian.

Botticelli’s mythologies typify the learning and social
graces of a society intent on reviving antiquity on a new
scale, but less for the moral lessons that interested Alberti
than for private delight. Botticelli’s painting gave this rare-
fied ideal a perfect embodiment, and at the same time
raised it to the level of poetry. In front of the dark green
leaves and golden fruit of the grove that shuts out the
world, the pale, long-limbed figures move with a melodi-
ous grace, their golden tresses and diaphanous garments
rippling about them. These lovely creatures seem almost
weightless, and the composition seems to waver as the
spring winds blow through it. Yet there is nothing hesitant

about Botticelli’s style. In his hands energetic patterns of
line are united with lighting from the side that emphasizes
the sculptural relief of every feature, every lock of hair,
every jewel. All surfaces are smooth, all masses firm, no
edge is veiled in atmosphere, no brushwork visible.

Slightly smaller than the Primavera , painted on canvas
(a surface at this time usually reserved for ceremonial
banners), and recorded in no Quattrocento inventory, the
Birth of Venus (fig. 13.24) was seen, together with the
Primavera , in Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco’s villa at Castello
by Vasari in the mid-sixteenth century. The suggestion that
the painting might originally have served a function differ-
ent from that of the Primavera is supported not only by the
unusual use of canvas but also by the more simplified
composition and iconography. Whether it might have been
a banner for a procession or festival is uncertain, but we
know that Botticelli painted such works because he is
documented in 1475 as painting a now-lost standard for
a joust.

Although the Birth of Venus corresponds to a passage in
Poliziano’s La giostra , E.H. Gombrich related it to Ficino’s
interpretation of the mythical birth of the full-grown

ART IN FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI II • 339

13.24. SANDRO BOTTICELLI. Birth of Venus, c. 1484-86. Canvas, 5'9" x 9’2" (1.75 x 2.8 m). Uffizi Gallery, Florence. Probably commissioned
by a member of the Medici family.

Venus after the sea had been fertilized by the severed geni-
tals of her father, Uranus. Ficino saw this birth as an alle-
gory of the birth of beauty in the mind of humanity.
Botticelli’s Venus, arisen from the sea, stands on the front
edge of a shell, while Zephyrus and a nymph waft her to
shore, where she will be robed by a waiting Hour, one of
her traditional attendants. The figure of Venus is derived
from ancient statues of the Venus pudica (modest Venus)
type, in which the figure tries to hide her nakedness with
her hands. In Botticelli’s variation, her long golden hair
sweeps gracefully about her, its flowing lines enhancing
the willowy figure. The neckline of the waiting Hour is
wreathed in laurel, presumably another Medicean refer-
ence. The sea itself is simply rendered, with V-shapes
suggesting waves. Flowers drift through the air, and Venus’
unearthly beauty is heightened by the use of gold pigment
to highlight her hair; Botticelli’s use of gold here may have
been inspired by Donatello’s use of golden highlights for
his Penitent Magdalen (see fig. 12.6). The qualities of
atmosphere and mass that so interested Renaissance artists
are irrelevant in this picture, which is dependent on the

delicacy of Botticelli’s line. His proportions show here their
greatest exaggeration, yet despite this, the long neck and
torrent of hair help to create an entrancing figure.

Botticelli’s use of a sinuous line that conveys movement
is even more clearly evident in his unfinished drawing of
Abundance or Autumn (fig. 13.25). He began with black
chalk, then consolidated and refined his ideas with brown
ink using both a pen for delicate linear definition and a
brush to create areas of subtle shadow. The final step
was to add highlights in white to enhance both the
three-dimensionality of the forms and the effect of refined
movement. The areas that were not reinforced with ink —
the cornucopia and two putti to the left — reveal the
suggestive nature of the initial chalk drawing. The right
leg of the putto directly to the left of the female figure
was drawn in two different positions; had Botticelli
completed the drawing, he would have had to select which
he felt was more effective. No final work corresponds to
this exquisite drawing and the fact that it remains unfin-
ished suggests that the project for which it was intended
was abandoned.

340

THE QUATTROCENTO

13.25. SANDRO BOTTICELLI. Abundance or Autumn. 1470s (?). Black chalk, pen and brown ink, brown wash, white heightening on pink
prepared paper, I 2 V 2 x 10" (31.7 x 25.3 cm). British Museum, London. The drawing was originally attached to a mount, suggesting to one
author that it had once formed part of Vasari’s book of drawings (see p. 37).

ART IN FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI II * 34 I

13.26. SANDRO BOTTICELLI. Portrait of a Man with a Medal
ofCosimo de’ Medici. c. 1475. Panel, 22 5 /s x 17 3 /8" (57.5 x 44 cm).
Uffizi Gallery, Florence. The medal that the man is holding, which
is executed in raised gilded gesso, seems to be a plaster cast of the
medal shown in figure 6.2.

The sitter in Botticelli’s Portrait of a Man with a Medal
of Cosimo de 3 Medici (fig. 13.26) may be Lorenzo di Pier-
francesco, since the features resemble his profile portrait
on a medal; whoever he was, he clearly felt a need to
demonstrate his allegiance to the Medici. The bold place-
ment of the head against the sky instead of a neutral back-
ground is unexpected in a portrait painted at this time, and
Botticelli demonstrates his ability to produce a powerful
and strongly individualized presence.

The Annunciation for Santa Maria Maddalena dei Pazzi
(fig. 13.27) shows the increasing intensity of Botticelli’s
later religious paintings. The event takes place in a room
furnished only with Mary’s reading desk, but through the
open door we look into her closed garden. The barrenness
of the architecture serves as a foil for the emotional figures.
Mary, whose pose is ultimately derived from Donatello’s

Annunciation (see fig. 10.21), sways as if caught in a rushing
wind. The biblical text says only that “her heart was dis-
turbed within her,” but here she seems about to swoon.
Her eyes are almost closed, her features pale. Botticelli’s
flowing line creates a passionate emotional expression.

The strong emotions, severe architectural forms, and
bold, clashing colors of Botticelli’s late style suggest that he
may have been a willing listener to the fiery sermons of
Girolamo Savonarola, a monk from Ferrara who became
prior of the monastery of San Marco in 1482 (see fig. 9.6).
There is, however, no evidence that Botticelli, unlike his
younger brother Simone, ever became a partisan of the
political movement that Savonarola set in motion. In his
sermons in the Duomo, the only building in Florence large
enough to hold his audiences, Savonarola denounced the
sins of Florence and the worldliness of the Renaissance
with such force that listeners wept openly. The adherents
of the Dominican preacher (known as piagnoni or
“weepers,” from piangere, “to weep”) mobilized popular
resentment against the Medici’s supporters, the palleschi.

The “art of dying” had become a common theme in
devotional literature starting in the later fourteenth
century. Of Savonarola’s two sermons on this subject one
is lost, but a second, preached on November 2, 1496, was
published before the end of the year in a pamphlet entitled
Sermon on the Art of Dying Well. The pamphlet, including
four woodcut illustrations, is an early example of a mass-
produced illustrated work. In the woodcut showing a man
who has waited until the last minute to repent (fig. 13.28),
his dilemma is evident in the contrast between the angels
gathered above on the one hand and, on the other, Death
knocking at the door and the devil standing by the man’s
head. The tondo of the Madonna and Child with Angels is
the kind of devotional picture that many Florentines kept
in their bedrooms (see figs. 9.11, 13.21). The unknown
artist hints at linear perspective but does not follow it in
either the floor or ceiling patterns; the goal of this boldly
graphic image was to exhort the reader and viewer to
repent, not to admire the artistic presentation.

Savonarola’s understanding of the power of images is
clear in the “bonfires of the vanities” led by his followers,
who exhorted Florentines to burn publicly their secular
books and paintings, elegant clothing, and false hairpieces.
The friar’s sermon encouraged his listeners to commission
pictures of death and dying that they could contemplate in
private. Although no surviving paintings can be related to
this exhortation, perhaps the illustrations in the pamphlet
were used in this way. Savonarola’s prophecies of the
destruction to be visited on Florence seemed to come true
when the armies of King Charles VIII of France entered the
city in 1494, after the expulsion of Lorenzo the Magnifi-
cent’s son, Piero the Unlucky. The peace that had reigned

342

THE QUATTROCENTO

13.27. SANDRO
BOTTICELLI.
Annunciation. 1489-90.
Panel, 59 x6lV (1.5 x
1.56 m). Uffizi Gallery,
Florence. Commissioned b]
Benedetto di Ser Francesco
Guardi del Cane for Sta.
Maria Maddalena dei Pazz
Florence. The frame, with
the small painting of Chrisl
as the Man of Sorrows,
is original.

Left: 13.28. Woodcut illustration from Girolamo Savonarola’s Predica
delVarte del bene morire ( Sermon on the Art of Dying Well), published
in Florence by Bartolommeo di Libri. 1496, with later editions in 1497
and c. 1505. Woodcut in 18-page pamphlet, size of pamphlet 8 x 5V8"
(20.3 x 12.9 cm).

The text related to this image reads: “A man [lies] sick in bed who has
waited until the last moment to do penance, but at that point few save
themselves.... His wife and relatives gather around him and persuade
him that he is not going to die, and everyone says, ‘Don’t frighten him,
tell him he’s going to recover, sick people shouldn’t be discouraged’! ....
[Also] the devil makes him desperate at that moment, arguing that he has
committed so many iniquities that it is not reasonable that God would
want to save him.”

ART IN FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI II * 343

13.29. SANDRO BOTTICELLI. Calumny of Apelles, 1497-98(?). Panel, 24 5 /s x 36" (62 x 91 cm). Uffizi Gallery, Florence.

The iconography of Apelles lost painting was known to Renaissance humanists through a description by the ancient author Lucian. It has been
suggested that Botticelli created this work without a commission, for his own satisfaction. If this was the case, a major question would be whether
Botticelli’s main intent was to re-create an ancient work or to comment on the death of Savonarola.

with few interruptions in central and northern Italy for
forty years was over, and it became evident that the Italian
states could not stave off domination by the centralized
monarchies of France and Spain, not to mention the Holy
Roman Empire. Eventually, Savonarola took over the gov-
ernment of the republic, but problems in Florence and his
attacks on Pope Alexander VI turned both the Florentines
and the papacy against him. In 1498 he was tortured until
he admitted the charges of heresy leveled against him. He
and two of his assistants were hanged in front of the
Palazzo dei Priori and their bodies burned; the ashes were
thrown in the Arno.

Botticelli’s apparent moralistic fervor during this period
is illustrated by a painting of a difficult subject known as
the Calumny of Apelles (fig. 13.29) because it attempts to
re-create a lost painting on the theme of slander (calumny)
by the ancient Greek painter Apelles, known in the Renais-
sance only from a description. Whether Botticelli’s paint-
ing has any connection with Savonarola is uncertain, and

who the humanistically minded patron may have been is
also unknown. It was Alberti who suggested that artists
attempt to re-create this painting. Standing beside the
throne of the unjust judge Midas are allegorical figures of
Ignorance and Suspicion, who lift Midas’ donkey ears to
whisper their advice. Slander, led by the hooded, bearded
Hatred, and attended by Deceit and Fraud, who is adjust-
ing her jewels, drags forward a nearly naked youth to face
Midas’ judgment. Penitence, an old woman, looks away
from the main scene toward the nude figure of Truth, who
points upward, to heaven.

The oppressive effect of the Calumny is in part produced
by its illogical space. Most of the perspective lines vanish
behind the head of Fraud, but the two barrel vaults in
the center recess toward a lower point. The composition is
further complicated by the throne at the right, which
creates an axis of interest in conflict with the visual axis of
the perspective. Sculptural friezes representing classical
subjects dwarf the piers, which are pierced by transverse

3 44

THE QUATTROCENTO

passages and decorated with niches. From these niches
protrude statues — a Judith with the head of Holofernes at
the extreme right, for example, and, at the center, a
warrior in the pose of Castagno's Pippo Spano (see fig.
11.14). More reliefs adorn the bases of the piers, and even
the coffers of the vault are filled with reliefs.

Within this active architecture, the figural composition
is rendered in Botticelli's characteristic linear style. Echoes
of earlier graceful figures occur here and there. Truth is an
obvious reference to the Birth of Venus (see fig. 13.24). But
the dreamlike quality of Botticelli's painted mythologies
has turned into a kind of nightmare. It has been proposed
that the picture was intended to defend the memory of
Savonarola by suggesting that his accusers were wicked
and his judge weak — a suggestion rendered plausible by
the tattered Dominican habit in which Penitence is dressed.

The crowded, dramatic style of the Calumny reappears
in contemporary religious works by Botticelli, such as the
painting of 1500 now known as the Mystic Nativity . On
the basis of the cryptic inscription across the top (see
caption to fig. 13.30), it has been suggested that this work
was painted for the artist's personal satisfaction. The
picture has been difficult to interpret despite this text.
While a few elements are drawn from Chapters 11 and 12
of the Book of Revelation, some of the figures are not, and
there are specific references to sermons by Savonarola. The
inscription’s reference to the second woe of the Apoca-
lypse, which describes the fiery prophecies of two “wit-
nesses” and their death at the hands of the Antichrist,
almost surely refers to the deaths of Savonarola and his
principal follower, Fra Domenico da Pescia. The “half time
after the time” can only refer to the year 1500, the half
millennium after the millennium of the Nativity of Christ.

The “trouble in Italy,” to which the inscription refers, is
not hard to identify, considering that the armies of Cesare
Borgia were then loose in Tuscany. Botticelli suggests that
after this passes we will be brought to the place where the
mystic woman of Revelation 12 has found refuge with her
child in the wilderness; then all devils will be chained
under the rocks (we see this in the lowest foreground),
angels will embrace us, and we may dwell in safety. Angels
with olive branches draw shepherds forward to adore the
Christ Child. In the heavens above, angels dance in a ring
and crowns swing from olive branches. The embrace of
peace, the circling patterns, the sheltering wood, and the
protecting mother offer an atmosphere of calm missing in
most of Botticelli's later pictures. Even the color is trans-
formed: the jewel-like blues, yellows, and reds are a release
from the harsh tones that characterized the immediately
preceding period of Botticelli's art.

During the last ten years of his life, Botticelli seems to
have painted little. Although he was consulted along with

other artists about the placing of Michelangelo's David in
1504, the Florence of Leonardo, Michelangelo, and the
young Raphael may have offered little or no opportunities
of work for him. Commissions went to artists who could
emulate the new style of the High Renaissance. Vasari,
who would have us believe that Botticelli's patronage
declined when he was under the influence of Savonarola,
wrote that Botticelli became prematurely old and walked
with two canes.

13.30. SANDRO BOTTICELLI. Mystic Nativity. 1500. Canvas,
42 V 4 x 29 V 2 " (108.6 x 74.9 cm). National Gallery, London.

At the top of the painting is this inscription, in Greek: “This picture
I, Alessandro, painted at the end of the year 1500, during the trouble
in Italy in the half time after the time which was prophesied in the
eleventh [chapter] of John and the second woe of the Apocalypse
when the Devil was loosed upon the earth for three years and a half.
Afterward he shall be put in chains according to the twelfth woe, and
we shall see [word missing] as in this picture.” The missing word
may be “heaven.”

ART IN FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI II * 345

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13.31. FILIPPINO LJPPI. Vision of St. Bernard, c. 1485-90. Panel, 6T0" x 6'5" (2.08 x 1.96 m). Church of the Badia, Florence.
Commissioned by Francesco del Pugliese, a wealthy cloth merchant, for the monastic church of Le Campora at Marignolle, near Florence.
The frame is original.

346 •

THE QUATTROCENTO

Filippino Lippi

The fourth important Florentine painter of the end of the
Quattrocento, Filippino Lippi (1457/58-1504), received
his early training from his father. Fra Filippo Lippi, accom-
panied him to Spoleto in 1466, and remained there until
Fra Filippo’s death in 1469. Filippino’s association with
Botticelli lasted for a number of years, perhaps until
the latter was called to Rome in 1481. In 1484 Filippino
was asked to complete the frescoes by Masaccio and
Masolino in the Brancacci Chapel (see figs. 8.7, 8.16) and,
while his figures can be distinguished from those of the
earlier artists, he based his compositions on theirs. The
effect is a surprisingly unified chapel given the delay in
its completion.

Filippino’s style is demonstrated in the Vision of St.
Bernard (fig. 13.31). Jacobus de Voragine’s thirteenth-
century Golden Legend explained that one day, when
Bernard was feeling so tired he could scarcely hold his pen,
the blessed Virgin, about whom he had written so much,
appeared to strengthen him. In later Cinquecento repre-
sentations of the vision, Mary and her accompanying
angels float as a heavenly apparition (see fig. 16.51). Here
she stands quietly before Bernard’s outdoor desk, attended
by wide-eyed child-angels, as she lays a slender hand on
Bernard’s rumpled page. He stops writing to look up in
adoration. Between Mary and the monk a Trecento maqu-
script stands open so that one can read St. Luke’s account

of the Annunciation. Filippino must have meant us to feel
that Mary came to St. Bernard as the angel Gabriel had
come to her, and that in this vision the Christ Child is born
a second time, as St. Antoninus would have put it, in
Bernard’s heart. On the hillside, monks look upward,
astonished, at the golden glow through which Mary and
her angels have descended. In the lower right-hand corner
the donor folds his hands in prayer; a demon, gnawing his
chains in defeat, can be seen in a hole in the rocks above
the donor’s head.

The naturalism of faces and hands, rocks and trees, even
the appearance of the angels reveals the impact of an
important artistic event. Florentine painters were pro-
foundly impressed when a large altarpiece representing the
Adoration of the Shepherds by the Netherlandish painter
Hugo van der Goes (fig. 13.32) arrived in Florence, prob-
ably in 1483. It had been commissioned by Tommaso
Portinari, a Florentine who worked in Flanders for the
Medici. The Florentines had seen small examples of
Netherlandish painting, and a tiny oil on panel painting
of St. Jerome attributed to Jan van Eyck and Petrus Chris-
tus (now in the Detroit Institute of Arts) had belonged to
Cosimo de’ Medici. The Portinari altarpiece, however,
offered the Florentines the detailed realism of Northern
painters on a huge scale and in a public setting. This work’s
arrival in Florence was a revelation, and Filippino must
have studied the melancholy faces of the Portinari children
with care, as they are reflected in those of his angels.

13.32. HUGO VAN DER GOES. Adoration of the Shepherds (Portinari altarpiece). Late 1470s. Panels: center, 8'4" x 10' (2.54 x 5.86 m);
laterals, each 8'4" x 4'8" (2.54 x 1.42 m). Uffizi Gallery, Florence. Commissioned by Tommaso Portinari for Sant’Egidio, Florence, where it was
placed on the high altar.

ART IN FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI II

3 47

13.33. FILIPPINO LIPPI. Fresco cycle of the legends of St. Philip and St. John the Evangelist. 1487-1502. Strozzi Chapel, Sta. Maria Novella,
Florence. Commissioned by Filippo Strozzi.

The tomb of Filippo Strozzi behind the altar is by Benedetto da Maiano. The tomb is placed so that it seems to lie underneath the altar table,
while the Madonna and Child sculpture that surmounts the tomb becomes a sculpted altarpiece for the chapel itself. The funereal symbolism is
continued in the fresco above the tomb, which features angels holding skulls and a shelf with a row of skulls. Filippino’s frescoes on the back wall
illusionistically suggest sculpture, thus integrating the marble tomb sculptures into the total decoration of the chapel. Filippino also designed
the stained glass, which features the Madonna and Child above (as a reference to the patron of the church) and, below, Sts. Philip and John the
Evangelist, to whom the chapel is dedicated. Notice how the decorative motifs in the framing of the window 7 match those in the frescoes. The
figures in the vault are from the Old Testament.

348 .

THE QUATTROCENTO

In Filippino’s frescoes of the legends of saints Philip and
John the Evangelist, this antimonumental style comes to its
climax (fig. 13.33). The frescoes for the Strozzi Chapel
were commissioned in 1487 by Filippo Strozzi, builder of
the Palazzo Strozzi (see fig. 12.17). He interrupted work
on the chapel when he gave Filippino permission to go to
Rome for an important commission in Santa Maria sopra
Minerva. Strozzi died in 1494 without seeing the frescoes,
which were not completed until 1502. The chapel was a
Gothic construction, and Filippino transformed it with
elaborate painted frames featuring details borrowed from

motifs in Rome’s Golden House of the Emperor Nero.
Since these decorations were found in what seemed to be a
grotto, they became known as grotteschi — the origin of
our word “grotesque.” They consist of lamps, urns, con-
soles, masks, harpies, lions’ feet, and other decorative
elements that can be combined vertically on pilasters or
woven into fantastic webs covering walls or vaults.
Filippino’s decoration is one of the first examples of
grotteschi in Florence.

St. Philip Exorcising the Demon in the Temple of Mars
(fig. 13.34) is one of the most unexpected pictures of the

13.34. FILIPPINO LIPPI. St. Philip Exorcising the Demon in the Temple of Mars. 1487-1502. Fresco. Strozzi Chapel,
Sta. Maria Novella, Florence.

ART IN FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI II * 349

Florentine Renaissance. Apocryphal sources relate that
when St. Philip entered the Temple of Mars in Hierapolis,
in Asia Minor, a demon in the shape of a dragon burst
from the base of the statue of the god and emitted such
poisonous fumes that the king’s son fell dead. St. Philip’s
exorcism of the dragon greatly displeased the priest of
Mars and led to the saint’s crucifixion, which Filippino
represents in the fresco above this one. At the upper right-
hand corner of the scene of exorcism, so small that one
hardly notices him, Christ appears in an opening in the
clouds, carrying his cross and offering his blessing.

The pagan altar is a huge exedra that encloses a statue
of Mars, while below, to either side, herms, supposedly
marble sculptures, twist as if alive. The ledges above are
crowded with trophies — offerings from devotees — and,
behind Mars, amphorae of various sizes and shapes. On
the cornice, statues of kneeling, bound captives below
winged Victories seem to mesh with the painted lamps that
hang into the scene on chains from the mouths of three
putti. The illusion becomes even more contradictory
through Filippino’s suggestion that some figures are stand-
ing in front of the frame at the sides; Filippino and
Botticelli were classified as experts of perspective by Fra
Luca Pacioli in 1494, but here Filippino demonstrates
how a late Quattrocento artist could manipulate the hard-
won perspective space of the earlier decades for his
own experimentation. While the complex framing ele-
ments invented by Filippino are restrained in color, the
exotic nature of the altar of Mars is suggested by its bronze
entablature, columns of varied marbles, green and gold
capitals, and pink cornices.

Mars, looking more like a living person than a statue,
brandishes a shattered lance with one hand, while with the
other he caresses what is supposedly a wolf, however much
it may look like a hyena. The priest cringes in terror at the
power of St. Philip. On either side stand priests, courtiers,
and soldiers wearing exotic costumes apparently meant to
suggest the Near East. The unity of body and pose that was
mastered by earlier artists such as Donatello and Masaccio
is understood by Filippino but is not an important part of
his style. Instead he wraps his figures in voluminous and
complex robes that enliven the composition and add to the
expressive power of his narrative. Despite differences of
costume, age, hair, beard, and skin color, the faces are
essentially the same; individuality was less important here
than evoking the nausea caused by the deadly fumes.

Filippino died in 1504 at the age of forty-six, only three
months after having submitted his judgment on the placing
of Michelangelo’s David (see fig. 16.1). We are told that all
the bottegbe of Via dei Servi closed in respect as his body
was carried from the church of San Michele Visdomini to
its final resting place in Santissima Annunziata.

Domenico del Ghirlandaio

Although the career of Domenico del Ghirlandaio
(1449-1494) was even briefer than that of Filippino, his
art might be considered a culmination of the Florentine
Quattrocento interest in the presentation of naturalistic
effects and realistic details. Domenico, together with his
brother Davide, their brother-in-law Bastiano Mainardi,
and an army of assistants, was awarded many major com-
missions for public painting in Florence — frescoes and
altarpieces — and a number of portrait commissions as
well. Like Agnolo Gaddi at the end of the Trecento (see fig.
5.11) and Giorgio Vasari in the third quarter of the
Cinquecento (see figs. 20.40-20.43), Ghirlandaio and his
school represented the accepted taste of the period. The
scientific pursuits of Pollaiuolo and Verrocchio might
appeal to Lorenzo the Magnificent, the arcane researches
of Botticelli to Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco and his friends,
but the ordinary Florentine businessman knew what he
liked and may even have been irritated by so much fierce
knowledge on the one hand and so much wild imagination
on the other. Ghirlandaio’s prosaic style suited the success-
ful merchant perfectly.

The fate of Ghirlandaio’s reputation is instructive. When
Quattrocento art was rediscovered by nineteenth-century
critics, Ghirlandaio’s meticulous view of life about him
impressed a generation that never quite understood
Masaccio and were little interested in the art of Uccello
and Piero della Francesca. Then, in the wake of Symbolist
and Art Nouveau emphasis on emotive form in the late
nineteenth century — which gave rise to the abstract forms
and perspectives of the early twentieth century —
Ghirlandaio fell from grace a second time.

Gradually, however, his merits have become appreciated
again. His art shows at least three important qualities:
he had the freshest and most consistent color sense of any
Florentine painter of his day; he was familiar with the
achievements of contemporary architecture and was thus
able to compose figures and architectural spaces in a
complex unity; and his rendering of human beings
reveals his interest in representing character. How future
historians view Ghirlandaio’s contributions remains to be
seen, but the vicissitudes in his reputation are typical of
the manner in which different periods view the art and
artists of the past.

Born Domenico Bigordi, the son of a dealer in the
golden garlands worn by wealthy women, the painter
acquired his father’s nickname, Ghirlandaio (“garland
maker”). He was trained as a metalworker, and it is not
certain how or when he turned to painting. He was soon
so popular that he could not work fast enough to satisfy
the demand for his works. His Last Supper for the

3 5 o

THE QUATTROCENTO

refectory of the monastery of Ognissanti (fig. 13.35) was
dependent on Castagno — probably not the work at Sant’
Apollonia (see fig. 11.1), which Ghirlandaio most likely
never saw, but Castagno’s lost Last Supper for Santa Maria
Nuova. Ghirlandaio’s table is situated in an upper room
with a view over citron trees and cypresses and a sky with
falcons and pheasants. Nowhere is there a face as intense
as those in Castagno’s surviving fresco, but the inner life
of these apostles is clear from their reactions to Christ’s
announcement of the betrayal. The freshness of the
color, the balance of the composition, and the natural-
istic handling of the faces and drapery epitomize
Ghirlandaio’s style.

Ghirlandaio included contemporary Florentine citizens
in his frescoes for the Sassetti Chapel in Santa Trinita in
Florence, dedicated by the wealthy banker Francesco
Sassetti to the legend of his patron, St. Francis. In the Res-
urrection of the Notary's Son (the central scene in the full
view of the chapel, fig. 13.1), Sassetti’s five daughters with
their spouses can be seen to the left. The figure to the far
right is Ghirlandaio himself; next to him is probably his

brother Davide. In the background, the boy who is the
subject of the miracle falls from the window of a large
palace; in the center, Francis blesses the child, who sits
upright on his bier. The clarity of the narrative is reminis-
cent of the simple ex-voto scenes still painted today for
Italian village churches to record the miraculous interven-
tion of saints in the lives of the faithful. The choice of this
unusual scene may be related to the death of Teodoro, the
son of Francesco Sassetti and his wife, Nora Corsi Sassetti,
in 1478 or 1479; shortly thereafter, Nora Sassetti gave
birth to a son who, in memory of his deceased brother, was
also named Teodoro.

Ghirlandaio set his scene in the Piazza Santa Trinita,
right outside the church where the chapel is situated. On
the left rises the Palazzo Spini, on the right the
Romanesque facade of Santa Trinita (to be replaced in the
late Cinquecento), and in the distance is the old Ponte
Santa Trinita, lined with houses (replaced, after the flood
of 1555, with a monumental new bridge; see fig. 20.27).

In the Confirmation of the Franciscan Rule (fig. 13.36),
Ghirlandaio’s determination to paint Florence into his

13.35. DOMENICO DEL GHIRLANDAIO. Last Supper. 1480. Fresco, 13 x 2 6'6" (4 x 8.1 m). Refectory, Ognissanti, Florence. The face of
Christ was repainted on a new patch of plaster by Carlo Dolci in the seventeenth century.

ART IN FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI II • 35 I

backgrounds is even more obvious. The scene of the pope’s
approval of the order, which took place in Rome, is
eclipsed in the foreground by a grouping of Florentines
and in the back by a view of Florence’s most important
public square, the Piazza della Signoria (see fig. 2.40). The
four portraits to the right are Antonio Pucci, Lorenzo the
Magnificent, and Francesco and Federigo Sassetti. Coming
up the steps in the foreground is the humanist Poliziano,
followed by Lorenzo’s sons: Giuliano is beside Poliziano,
with Piero and Giovanni behind. We can still make out a
nail hole in the middle of the central opening of the back-
ground loggia. This is where Ghirlandaio’s bottega
attached the nail that held the string used to mark the
orthogonals of the perspective scheme and to create some
of the semicircular arches of the setting. Ghirlandaio’s use
of a Florentine setting for this Roman scene has been
related to the idea that republican Florence represented the
idea of a “new Rome.”

In the chapel’s altarpiece, the Nativity and Adoration of
the Shepherds (fig. 13.37), the Virgin adores the Christ

Child, who rests on a bundle of hay. Corinthian piers,
one bearing the date 1485, support the roof of the shed.
The ox and ass look earnestly out and down over the
manger, here a Roman sarcophagus, its inscription
recording a divine promise of resurrection for the former
occupant. The Roman triumphal arch in the background
bears an inscription of Pompey the Great. The train of the
magi passes through the triumphal arch and moves toward
the foreground. The realism of the ox, ass, Mary, and
above all the three shepherds shows Ghirlandaio’s study
of Van der Goes’s Portinari altarpiece (see fig. 13.32).
Ghirlandaio must have admired this work for the
completeness with which the tiniest detail was rendered.
Following Van der Goes, he incorporates a vase of flowers
into his foreground, complete with the Florentine iris. But
although the types and poses of his shepherds come
straight out of the Portinari altarpiece, the differences
between the two works are instructive: for all his
absorption in Netherlandish detail, Ghirlandaio was a
Florentine, and he assimilated the detail into the overall

13.36. DOMENICO DEL GHIRLANDAIO. Confirmation of the Franciscan Rule by Pope Honorius III . 1483-86. Fresco, width at base
17'2" (5.25 m). Sassetti Chapel, Sta. Trinita, Florence. See also fig. 13.1.

3 5 *

THE QUATTROCENTO

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13.37. DOMENICO DEL GHIRLANDAIO. NafcVsty and Adoration of the Shepherds. 1485. Panel, 65 3 U" (1.67 m) square,
it Sassetti Chapel, Sta. Trinita, Florence. See also fig. 3.1.

The frame is original; the grotteschi decoration on the pilasters was inspired by the ancient Roman frescoes that had recently been discovered
in the Golden House of Nero in Rome. When Ghirlandaio visited the archaeological site he carved his initials onto one of the ancient walls.

monumentality and compositional harmony of an Italian
Renaissance altarpiece.

One of Ghirlandaio’s major commissions was the series
of almost twenty frescoes of the lives of Mary and John the
Baptist that fills the Gothic chancel of Santa Maria Novella
(fig 13.38; see fig. 2.34). The patron was the wealthy
Giovanni Tornabuoni, a relative by marriage of the

Medici, and Ghirlandaio was under such pressure that he
enlisted his whole shop in the undertaking, including pos-
sibly a thirteen-year-old apprentice named Michelangelo
Buonarroti. The compositions are framed by a decorative
Renaissance architecture closely connected, like that in the
Sassetti Chapel, with the ideas of the architect Giuliano da
Sangallo (see figs. 12.21-12.23) and full of elaborate detail.

ART IN FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI II * 353

13.38. DOMENICO DEL GHIRLANDAIO. Fresco cycle of the lives of Mary and John the Baptist, 1485-90. Tornabuoni Chapel (Cappella
Maggiore), Sta. Maria Novella, Florence. Commissioned by Giovanni Tornabuoni. Ghirlandaio also designed the stained glass. The altarpiecc
has been removed and is now in the Alte Pinacoteca in Munich, to be replaced by the marble construction seen here.

3 54

THE QUATTROCENTO

13.39. DOMENICO DEL GHIRLANDAIO. Birth of the Virgin. 1485-5*0. Fresco, width approximately 14’9 M (4.5 m). Cappella Maggiore,
Sta. Maria Novella, Florence. See also fig. 13.38.

The Birth of the Virgin (fig. 13.39) takes place in an
interior in Giuliano’s style. Anne reclines on a bed sur-
rounded by paneling inlaid with ancient Roman designs,
within which one can read both Ghirlandaio’s family name
and his nickname. The child is held by attendants; another
pours water for her bath. Giovanni Tornabuoni’s daughter
Ludovica, standing dispassionately nearby with atten-
dants, is dressed in a level of splendor that surely violated
Florentine sumptuary laws. The details, including the
frieze of putti, are painted with Ghirlandaio’s precision of
observation and perspective consistency.

Our farewell to Ghirlandaio might best be made with his
incisive portrait of an old man with a child, possibly his
grandson (fig. 13.40). The sitters have never been identi-
fied. A drawing by Ghirlandaio showing the old man on
his deathbed reveals that the painting served as a com-
memoration. All the best qualities of Ghirlandaio’s art

13.40. DOMENICO DEL GHIRLANDAIO. Old Man with a
Young Boy. c. 1490. Panel, 24 3 /s x 18 Os" (62.7 x 46.3 cm). The Louvre,
Paris. The disease that disfigured the old man’s nose is rhinophyma.

ART IN FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI 11 • 35 5

appear here: the inner gentleness of expression, the delicate
light on the smooth surfaces, the brilliance of the color, the
beauty of the landscape, the straightforward composition,
and the honesty of detail, studied with such respect that
the old man’s deformity loses its ugliness.

Piero di Cosimo

Although Piero di Cosimo (1462-1522) lived well into the
sixteenth century, he is included at this point because his
works are largely a reflection of Quattrocento concerns.
Vasari, who loved a good story, tells us that Piero hated
thunderstorms and fire, the latter to such an extent that he
was afraid to cook, and that he lived on hard-boiled eggs,
preparing fifty at a time. He also never allowed anyone to
prune his fruit trees or weed his flowers. Piero’s works are
exceptional, especially in their interest in wild landscape,
but whether the artist was the character described by
Vasari is uncertain.

In a haunting painting by Piero (fig. 13.41), a young
woman is shown with an asp coiled around her neck. The
immediate association is with Cleopatra, which is the iden-
tification Vasari gave to this painting, but the inscription
identifies her as Simonetta Vespucci, the wife of Marco
Vespucci, cousin of the explorer Amerigo Vespucci. The
net of pearls that adorns her hair helps to confirm the iden-
tification, as it is a vespaio , a “wasp’s nest,” and clearly a
play on her husband’s name. Simonetta became, according
to contemporary records, the platonic mistress (a construct
of the period based on Petrarchan love sonnets) of Giu-
liano de’ Medici, and a great joust was held in her honor
in Florence in 1475. A year later, the twenty-three-year-old
Simonetta died of tuberculosis, which explains the storm
clouds and the threatening asp shown here. Her memory
was celebrated by numerous poems and by a public
funeral, in which her body was displayed in an open coffin
so that her beauty could be appreciated.

Scholars have disagreed over the identification and
interpretation of the picture, arguing that it seems unlikely
that a fifteenth-century Florentine woman would have
been immortalized in a bare-breasted portrait. While this is
true of a living woman, this is a posthumous image and
can best be interpreted as a commemoration of a beautiful
woman who died too young. The portrait may have had a
cover in Piero di Cosimo ’s Allegory of Chastity Triumph-
ing over Lust (not illustrated), which is approximately
the same size. For a Quattrocento spectator, such a
cover would have muted the surprising nature of the image
by establishing that Simonetta’s virtue was the subject of
the painting.

A mythological scene by Piero (fig. 13.42) is now held to
represent the death of Procris, daughter of Erectheus, king

of Athens. According to Ovid, Procris was pierced in the
chest by a javelin thrown by her husband, Cephalus, who
mistook her for an animal concealed in the forest. Procris,
here wounded in the throat, is mourned by a satyr, whose
grief is as touchingly represented as is the wordless sympa-
thy of the dog. Piero must have felt a deep kinship with
animals. The landscape setting has been designed to
emphasize the main subject, the flowers bending toward
the center, and the sloping shores of the harbor reflecting
the position of the nymph’s body. Some of the effect of
softness in the sky was achieved by Piero blending his thick
oil paint with his fingertips.

It may have been Francesco del Pugliese, the wealthy
cloth merchant who had commissioned Filippino Lippi’s
Vision of St Bernard (see fig. 13.31), who asked Piero to
paint a pair of spalliere representing the early history of
humanity inspired by Lucretius’ ancient Roman text De
rerum natura ( Concerning the Nature of Things). One
panel (fig. 13.43) depicts a battle among humans,

13.41. PIERO DI COSIMO . Fantasy Portrait of Simonetta
Vespucci as Cleopatra (?). Early 1480s. Panel, 22 l /i x I6V2"
(57 x 42 cm). Musee Conde, Chantilly.

3 5 6 •

THE QUATTROCENTO

animals, and such half-human creatures as centaurs and
satyrs. The forest setting is typically unpruned and fire
breaks out here and there in wild gusts that seem to be
brushed on quickly with bold brushstrokes. Piero’s imagi-
nation enabled him to create a vision of the terrors,
traumas, and troubles of prehistoric humanity, and he
pulls us into this world through a combination of distant
landscape and foreshortened figures: a dead dog at the
far left, a horse to the right of center, and a rotting

corpse in the right foreground. It is hard not to be both
fascinated and horrified by the brutish behavior Piero
assigned to our ancestors. How this evolutionistic view of
mankind was reconciled with the account in Genesis we
can only guess.

The artists discussed here, together with innumerable
imitators, bring to its close a century of great artistic
fertility. As we will see, the art and architecture of the new
century moved in a sharply different direction.

Above: 13.42. PIERO DICOSIMO. Death ofProcris. e. 1495-1510. Panel, 25 3 A x 72 V-t" (65.4 x 184.2 cm). National Gallery, London.
Like Botticelli’s Venus and Mars (see fig. 13.22), this was probably a spalliera panel.

13.43. PIERO DI COSIMO. Hunting Scene, c. 1485-1500. Panel, 27 3 /4 x 5'6 3 /V (70 x 169.5 cm). Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
(Gift of Robert Gordon, 1875). Probably commissioned by Francesco del Pugliese, perhaps in connection with his marriage in 1485.

ART IN FLORENCE UNDER THE MEDICI II * 357

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CENTRAL ITALY

W hile artists working throughout
much of the Italian peninsula felt the
impact of Florentine artistic innova-
tions, their patrons often had little
interest in the civic ideals expressed
in the works created in Florence. The problems faced by
most central Italian towns, for example, had little in
common with the civic responsibilities considered impor-
tant by the Florentines. If these states escaped absorption
by Florence, whose territorial ambitions were aimed
largely at protecting the Arno Valley, they fell under the
control of other powers, especially, during the second half
of the century, the papacy. In some centers the old com-
munal form of government lingered on, however, and
certain sovereigns, such as the counts (later dukes) of
Urbino and the lords of Rimini, maintained their inde-
pendence. A number of local schools of art flourished in
southern Tuscany and in the regions now known as
Umbria, Latium, and the Marches. The most important
developed in the most populous centers: Siena and Perugia.

Siena

By the early Quattrocento the bonds that had once linked
Siena with Florence had almost dissolved. In 1399 Siena
submitted to the temporary overlordship of Giangaleazzo
Visconti of Milan, who thereby outflanked Florence from
the south (see p. 160). While Florence emphasized papist
Guelph allegiances, Siena supported the Holy Roman
Empire and received visits from Emperors Sigismund and

Frederick III. At the end of the Quattrocento, the city was
under the rule of a dictator, Pandolfo Petrucci.

In artistic terms, Siena never had a revolutionary figure
like Masaccio or Brunelleschi, and the city’s artists some-
times seem to have regarded perspective as a novelty. They
demonstrated little interest in the Early Renaissance and
less in the High Renaissance, and antiquity made only a
tardy and fragmentary appearance in their art. One excep-
tion is the sculptor Jacopo della Quercia (see figs.
7.19-7.24), but he worked as much in Lucca and Bologna
as in his native city.

We may wonder what Florentine artists thought of Siena
when they visited. The reliefs contributed by Donatello
and Ghiberti to the baptismal font in the Cathedral of
Siena (see figs. 7.18-7.19) were soon imitated by Sienese
artists, and when Donatello returned in the 1450s, a spark
of his late style caught fire in the minds of some local
sculptors. In 1458, when the Sienese humanist Aeneas
Silvius Piccolomini became Pope Pius II, he called
Bernardo Rossellino to Siena for architectural projects
there and in the village of Corsignano, which the pope
rechristened Pienza (see figs. 10.10-10.11).

There are other contacts as well, but Siena in the Quat-
trocento went its own way. Many patrons apparently con-
tinued to prefer Gothic pointed arches and gold
backgrounds. There was a dear demand for copies of
works by the leading Sienese Trecento artists or for varia-
tions on earlier works by Duccio, Simone Martini, and the
Lorenzetti. The Sienese painters did, however, show a
strong interest in nature. In Siena the open country began

Opposite: 14.1. PINTORICCHIO and RAPHAEL. Departure of Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini for Basel. 1503-8. Fresco, m Piccolomini Library,
Cathedral, Siena. Commissioned by Cardinal Francesco Piccolomini, who died in 1503, only a month after being crowned as Pope Pius III (see
figs. 14.21-14.22).

THE RENAISSANCE IN CENTRAL ITALY * 359

14.2. SASSETTA. St
Francis in Ecstasy , from the
back of the Sansepolcro
altarpiece. 1437-44. Panel,
6'8 3 /4" x4’ (2 x 1.2 m).
Berenson Collection, Villa I
Tatti, Florence (reproduced
by permission of the
President and Fellows
of Harvard College).
Commissioned by the
Franciscan Community in
Sansepolcro for the high
altar of S. Francesco,
Sansepolcro.

360

THE QUATTROCENTO

at the city walls, where one can still find vistas out over
low ranges of hills to spacious views. Without the aid of
Florentine science, Sienese painters made discoveries
about landscape that were overlooked by the more sys-
tematic Florentines.

Sassetta

Stefano di Giovanni (c. 1400-1450), who was nicknamed
Sassetta (“little stone”) for unknown reasons, may have
come to Siena from Cortona. His double-sided Sansepol-
cro altarpiece, its elements now scattered, is his major
work. The front showed an Enthroned Madonna and
Child between four saints; on the back St Francis in
Ecstasy (fig. 14.2) was flanked by eight panels illustrating
the saint’s life (see fig. 14.3).

Seen in its original position in the restricted space of a
monks’ choir, the St. Francis in Ecstasy must have been
compelling. Francis, extending his arms as he glides mirac-
ulously over the sea, stands upon the crowned and bearded
figure of the vice Wrath, who is attended by a lion. To the
left, an elegantly dressed woman leaning on a boar while
looking into a mirror personifies Lust. On the right,
Avarice, a shriveled old woman dressed in black and
accompanied by a wolf, keeps her moneybag in a rectan-
gular chest. Above the saint soar three dainty blonde
maidens who represent the Franciscan Virtues: Chastity
with her lily, Poverty dressed in rags, and — in the center —
Obedience with her yoke. The inscription on Francis’s halo
identifies him as the patriarch of the poor.

The saint’s pose and expression convey both rapture and
calm. The figure is modeled in broad masses by a high light
source, creating an effect of weight and supporting the
notion that Sassetta may have studied the works of Masac-
cio. While the facial features are equally sculptural, the
head is curiously constructed; following Byzantine tradi-
tion, Sassetta used the bridge of the nose as the center of
the face, drawing a circle from this point to create the
circles of the halo. The forehead and hair fall short, appar-
ently to indicate that the head is tilted back. Sienese lin-
earism reappears in the wrinkles in the saint’s forehead,
temples, and cheeks, which are drawn as parallel curves,
moving in elliptical, parabolic, or figure-eight patterns
with dizzying effect.

Around the saint blazes a mandorla composed of red
seraphim with interlocked wings, a traditional Trecento
device (see fig. 5.3). These have largely peeled away from
the gold background, but originally they must have been
striking. The representation of the distant shore with its
hills and towers forces us to read the gold background as
sky. We are aware of echoes of Simone Martini and the
Lorenzetti, but this should not blind us to the fact that,

without applying Florentine perspective, Sassetta has
established a convincing distant landscape and has set a
solid, well-modeled figure within that space. These are
Renaissance elements, and they place Sassetta in harmony
with what was happening in Florence at the time.

In the smaller scenes, Sassetta gave free rein to his imag-
ination and interest in space. The Marriage of St. Francis
to Lady Poverty (fig. 14.3) shows the saint placing a ring
on the finger of Poverty, who stands between Chastity and
Obedience. As the three then float off for celestial regions,
Poverty glances back sweetly toward her bridegroom. The
curves of the Virtues harmonize with the shapes of the

14.3. SASSETTA. Marriage of St. Francis to Lady Poverty, from
the back of the Sansepolcro altarpiece. 1437-44. Panel, 34 5 /8 x 2OV2"
(88 x 52 cm). Musee Conde, Chantilly.

THE RENAISSANCE IN CENTRAL ITALY * 3 6 l

cusped frame. At the lower right, Sassetta makes reference
to Duccio in a tiny city that might have come out of a panel
of the Maestd (see fig. 4.9). A white road runs across the
valley floor to branch into curves among distant mountain
ranges that are not just a backdrop; these peaks loom
before us, their contours rippling in the evening air. Sas-
setta here achieves a compelling sense of natural space.

Domenico di Bartolo

The first Sienese painter to capture some of the gravity of
the Florentine Renaissance is Domenico di Bartolo (c.
1400-1447). The influence of Masaccio is apparent in his
Madonna of Humility (fig. 14.4), which, judging by its
modest size, was probably intended for personal devotion.

14.4. DOMENICO DI BARTOLO. Madonna of Humility. 1433.
Panel, 36 5 /s x 23 V 4 " (93 x 59 cm). Pinacoteca, Siena.

By representing the Madonna seated low upon a cushion,
the artist endowed her with the virtue of humility, and this
pose, first developed by Simone Martini in the 1330s, was
widespread by the early Quattrocento. Domenico has
packed his picture with bulky, Masaccioesque figures that
are firmly placed in space. But Domenico’s Sienese lin-
earism required every shape to be surrounded by a sharp
contour that somewhat negates the modeling so important
in the Florentine Early Renaissance. The Christ Child
stuffs fingers instead of grapes into his mouth, and the
angels with their elaborate curls have nothing to do with
Masaccio’s ragamuffins. The scroll (cartellino) in the fore-
ground states that Domenico “painted and prayed to” this
Madonna. This unexpected inscription suggests that the
painting may have been intended for the artist’s private use
or, perhaps, that a patron or purchaser would not have
been unhappy with the painter’s devotions to the Madonna
while he was painting her.

Domenico’s major surviving achievement is his partici-
pation in a series of frescoes in the Pellegrinaio, the hall for
pilgrims at Siena’s Hospital of Santa Maria della Scala
(figs. 14.5-14.6). Our interest in the series is heightened by
their unusual secular subjects, which deal with the charita-
ble, civic, and medical activities of the hospital and, by
extension, the Sienese government and population. The
Gothic vaulting of the room established arched frames,
through which we look, as if through windows, back into
the spaces and events of the fifteenth century. Some of the
settings seem to be the rooms of the hospital; attesting to
Domenico’s accuracy is the three-legged basin shown in
use in the Care of the Sick (fig. 14.6), which survives and
is displayed at a nearby museum. In this image, Domenico
combines specific portraiture with a carefully observed
treatment of the male nude. The unidealized bodies of the
sick man being placed in bed and the wounded man being
washed exemplify the new interest in realism and are
unthinkable without the influence of Masaccio. In their
naturalism and wealth of imagery drawn from contempo-
rary life, these frescoes provide remarkable insights into
Sienese activities.

In addition to saints and prophets and The Care of the
Sick shown here, the subjects represented in the Pellegri-
naio frescoes emphasized the history of the hospital and
the wide reach of its charitable activities: The Founding of
the Hospital of Santa Maria della Scala , The Building of
the Hospital , Pope Celestine III Granting the Hospital
Privileges , The Blessed Agostino Novello , Giving the
Cloak of Office to the Rector , The Reception of Pilgrims ,
The Distribution of Alms , The Feeding of the Poor , and
The Rearing and Marriage of Female Orphans . There were
also seven scenes drawn from the Old Testament story of
Tobias, but these have been lost.

362 • THE QUATTROCENTO

14.5. DOMENICO DI BARTOLO and others. View of the fresco cycle in the Pellegrinaio, Hospital of Sta. Maria della Scala, Siena. 1440s.

14.6. DOMENICO DI BARTOLO. Care of the Sick. 1440-47. Fresco. Pellegrinaio, Hospital of Sta. Maria della Scala, Siena (see fig. 14.5).
Commissioned by the hospital administration under the direction of the rector, Giovanni di Francesco Buzzichelli.

THE RENAISSANCE IN CENTRAL ITALY * 363

Matteo di Giovanni

In their isolation, the Sienese painters of the second half of
the Quattrocento inverted Florentine inventions to achieve
personal poetic and expressive effects, absorbing the
details of Renaissance architectural decoration while
ignoring its harmony and dignified proportions, and trans-
forming the linear grace of Botticelli to their own ends.
One of the most subjective is Matteo di Giovanni
(1435 P-1495), who is best known for four monumental
compositions of the Massacre of the Innocents, three for
Sienese churches and one executed in inlaid stone for the
pavement of Siena’s Duomo. The popularity of such a
horrific subject is perhaps due to the massacre of Christian
children by the Saracens at Otranto in southern Italy in
1480. In Matteo’s treatment of the theme for Sant’
Agostino of 1482 (fig. 14.7), the arches and columns of
Herod’s palace suggest that the artist had visited Rome. He
has left no foreground space, and every inch of Herod’s
hall is occupied by screaming mothers, dead or dying
babies, and bloodthirsty soldiers. The marble pavement is
covered with infant corpses. Impassive courtiers flank
Herod’s throne, while the gloating king is portrayed as a

monster, one hand outstretched to order the butchery, the
other, like a claw, clutching the marble sphinx on the arm
of his throne. Matteo draws our attention to the soldier
near the right-hand column, who pauses in his bloody task
to look straight at the spectator. Can this be Matteo
himself, trapped within this holocaust of his own creation?

Vecchietta

The visits of the Florentine sculptors Donatello and Ghib-
erti and the intermittent presence of the native Jacopo della
Quercia provided the impetus for Renaissance develop-
ments by local sculptors in Siena. One of the most memo-
rable, Lorenzo di Pietro, called Vecchietta (1412-1480),
was also a painter. He was engaged to work with Masolino
at an early age, picked up elements from the Florentine
painters at mid-century, and executed one of the frescoes at
the Hospital of Santa Maria della Scala. His most remark-
able work is the Risen Christ (fig. 14.8), a bronze figure
harrowing in its insistence on such realistic details as the
veins on the legs, arms, and torso. The dramatic expres-
siveness of Christ’s emaciated body suggests the influence
of the late Donatello. The artist’s personal involvement is

14.7. MATTEO DI GIOVANNI.
Massacre of the Innocents. 1482.
Panel, 7'11" x 7'10V2" (2.4 x 2.4 m).
Sant’ Agostino, Siena.

364 • THE QUATTROCENTO

14,8, VECCHIETTA. Risen Christ. 1476, Bronze, -heigh t
6' (1.8 ml. Ill Sta. Maria della Scala, Siena, Created by ihe artist
for his own tomb chapel at the Hospital of Sta. Maria delta Scab,

evident in the touching petition he addressed to hospital
officials ashing that he be permitted to place this statue, a
personal expression of late Quattrocento religiosity, in the
chapel where his tomb was to be located. The idea that an
artist would have a prominent tomb marked by an impor-
tant work of art is an indication of the rapidly changing
status of artists during this period. Later, in the sixteenth
century, Raphael was laid in state and then buried in the
ancient Roman Pantheon (see fig. 1.2), and both Titian
and Michelangelo started but left unfinished representa-
tions of the Pieta intended to mark their own tombs (see
figs, 19.27, 20.16).

Francesco di Giorgio

Francesco di Giorgio (1439-1502) — architect, sculptor,
and painter — was the only Sienese Quattrocento artist
except for Jacopo della Quercia to acquire a reputation
outside of Siena; he worked at the courts of Urbino,
Naples, and Milan, where he was influenced by Leonardo
da Vinci. His large Coronation of the Virgin (fig. 14,9) has
a spatial composition that is difficult to unravel. A marble

14.9. FRANCESCO DI GIORGIO. Coronation of the Virgin,
1471, Panel, Il ( x 6'6" (3.4 x 2 m). Pinacoteca, Siena. Probably
commissioned for the high altar of the Benedictine monastery' of
Monte Oil veto Maggiore, near Siena,

THE RENAISSANCE IN CENTRAL ITALY • 365

floor recedes to steps that end at a wall articulated by
pilasters and paneled in veined marble. The floor and steps
are crowded with saints, while prophets sit atop the wall.
Angels and cherubs support a floating platform of cherub
wings and heads on which Mary kneels to receive her
crown from Christ. At the top, a foreshortened figure of
God the Father, feet first, is surrounded by a spinning
cloud based on Dante’s description: the concentric circles
around God represent the seven heavens, each having a
planetary sign from the zodiac. At the apex, inside the
highest circle, is an array of female nudes based on Dante’s
statement that the final heaven, or empyrean, was “pieno
d’amore” (“full of love”).

A master of perspective, Francesco here renounces it to
represent a synopsis of the Christian universe, including
nine hierarchies of angels and eight of souls. In spite of the
Renaissance treatment of figures and drapery, the effect is
of an abstract schema, like Duccio’s Maesta , which nobody
in Siena was ever quite able to forget (see figs. 4.5— 4.8).
The mournful faces and staring eyes are as characteristic of
Francesco’s paintings as are the treatment of drapery and
hair and the poses of the figures. The dramatic and unex-
pected color scheme is dominated by reds, orange-reds,
and several shades of bright blue.

Francesco’s sculpture shows a close acquaintance with
the works of Donatello, Ghiberti, and Antonio del Pol-
laiuolo. His Flagellation relief (fig. 14.10), probably
modeled and cast in bronze during Francesco’s stay in
Urbino in the late 1470s, provides a striking contrast to the
earlier Flagellation by Piero della Francesca (see fig.
11.29). The spatial impression created by the central
portico and flanking architectural masses recalls Ghiberti’s
reliefs on the Gates of Par adise (see figs. 10.1, 10.14), but
the handling of the figures, left rough and sketchy after
being cast in bronze, is derived from Donatello’s late style
(see figs. 12.8-12.9). The tormented pose of Christ, with
his head thrown back, and the wild movement of the
yelling man who beats him suggest the poses and expres-
sions of Pollaiuolo.

The buildings Francesco portrayed are new in style, as
were those he designed and built. The second stories of the
palaces in the background of the Flagellation are raised on
ground stories treated like gigantic podia, thus emphasiz-
ing what came to be known as the piano nobile (the second
story, where the nobles lived). On the left, Francesco pro-
vided this second story with balconies. These two-story
palaces, which contrast with the three-story palaces
common in Florence and other Italian cities, seem to have
been Francesco’s invention. Bramante, the most important
architect of the High Renaissance and a citizen of Urbino,
may have received the idea from Francesco. Also influen-
tial is thetemphasis Francesco gave to the windows, which

14.10. FRANCESCO DI GIORGIO. Flagellation . Late 1470s.
Bronze, 22 x 16" (55.9 x 40.6 cm). Galleria Nazionale ddl’Umbria,
Perugia.

are treated as independent tabernacles with sharply pro-
jecting frames, some composed of pilasters supporting a
pediment and resting upon a continuous cornice. These
were taken up by Bramante, Raphael, Antonio da Sangallo
the Younger, and Michelangelo, and became a constant
feature of monumental architecture through the later
Renaissance and Baroque periods.

Some of the grandest constructions of the late Quattro-
cento and early Cinquecento were sanctuaries built to
enshrine miracle-working images of the Virgin, including
Giuliano da Sangallo’s Santa Maria delle Carceri in Prato
(see figs. 12.21-12.23) and Francesco’s Santa Maria del
Calcinaio (fig. 14.11), near Cortona. A miraculous image
was found there in 1484, and the influx of pilgrims was so
great that Francesco was commissioned to design a church
to contain them. It was completed in 1515, long after the
architect’s death, but the initial phases of construction
seem to have proceeded rapidly, and there was enough
built to dedicate the building in 1485. The plan is a Latin
cross (fig. 14.12), its nave having three bays of diminishing
depth to increase the apparent length of the church as seen

366 •

THE QUATTROCENTO

Above: 14.11. FRANCESCO DI GIORGIO. Sta. Maria
del Calcinaio, Cortona. Begun 1484-85; completed 1515,
by Antonio da Sangallo the Elder.

14.12. FRANCESCO DI GIORGIO. Plan of Sta. Maria del
Calcinaio, Cortona. Begun 1484-85; completed 1515.

14.13. FRANCESCO DI GIORGIO. Interior, Sta. Maria del
Calcinaio, Cortona. Begun 1484-85; completed 1515.

plaster walls and barrel vaults suggest a space larger than
the one they actually enclose. The tabernacles in pietra
serena seem to be independent sculptural entities within
the broad expanses of white wall.

from the entrance, a device already used at the Gothic
church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence (see fig. 2.35).
Francesco’s lofty two-storied hall is roofed by a barrel
vault (fig. 14.13) and articulated by pilasters. The
Corinthian order of the second floor, which is visually sup-
ported by flat unmolded strips on the lower floor, supports
the same kind of heavy entablature and cornice seen in the
palaces of his Flagellation.

The tabernacle windows, with their sharply projecting
pediments, are identical inside and out, and are the direct
ancestors of the tabernacles that play such an important
role in the architecture of Michelangelo (see fig. 18.11). All
four ends of the Latin cross plan are flat. An unbroken
entablature encircles the church, and the plain white

Neroccio de’ Landi

Neroccio de’ Landi (1447-1500), like many other late
fifteenth-century Sienese artists, probably studied with
Vecchietta, but he was also influenced by Francesco di
Giorgio, with whom he collaborated between 1468 and
1475. Like both these artists, Neroccio was both painter
and sculptor. In 1483, he designed a figure of the Helles-
pontine Sibyl that was translated into inlaid marble for the
decorated pavement of Siena Cathedral (see fig. 2.26).

Portrait of a Woman (fig. 14.14) epitomizes Neroccio’s
style. The sitter is probably one of the three daughters of
Bandino Bandini, a wealthy Sienese citizen; a costly dress
and impressive jewels convey her status. The jewelry is
simple in design, with an extensive use of pearls and some

THE RENAISSANCE IN CENTRAL ITALY * 3 6 J

14.14. NEROCCIO DE’ LANDI. Portrait of a Woman . c. 1485.
Panel, 287i6 x 17 15 /i6 (61.8 x 45.6 cm). National Gallery of Art,
Washington, D.C. The frame is possibly original. The letters “OP”
and “NER” to either side of the text below are an abbreviation of
the artist’s signature: “OPUS NEROCCIO.”

large red stones, perhaps rubies; it can be compared to the
delicate filigree earrings seen in Sienese painting of a
century earlier (see fig. 4.27). Her cap and the neckline of
her dress and undergarment are also decorated with pearls.
Everything seems designed to set off her pale skin and the
pale blonde hair that in Siena at the time would have been
most unusual. The brocade of her dress and hat were orig-
inally executed in gold leaf, and gold touches add high-
lights to the trees and clouds in the background. The
sitter’s loose hair indicates that she is unmarried: married
Sienese women wore their hair pulled up in a knot. The
Latin text below the figure refers to both her accomplish-
ments and the appropriate female virtue of modesty:
“Whatever a human being is permitted to, I attain through
my prodigious art; yet, a mortal competing with the gods,
I achieve nothing.”

Neroccio and three other artists participated in the
creation of a cycle of Famous Men and Women, of which
seven panels survive. The selection of figures for the cycle
is unusual — Joseph of Egypt, Alexander the Great,

Artemisia, Tiberius Gracchus, Scipio Africanus, Claudia
Quinta, and Sulpicia — suggesting that this group must
have been selected by the patron, probably in consultation
with a local humanist. In the Renaissance household, such
groupings of figures were intended both as inspirations
and as warnings. The inclusion of the chaste Claudia
Quinta, painted by Neroccio (fig. 14.15), speaks to the
importance of this virtue for Renaissance women. This
young Roman woman was falsely accused of impropriety.
She prayed to Cybele, the Mother Goddess worshipped in
Rome, and when a ship transporting a gilded statue of
Cybele to Rome became stuck in the Tiber River, Claudia
pulled the ship free using only a thin cord, as seen in the

14.15. NEROCCIO DE’ LANDI. Claudia Quinta , from a cycle of
Famous Men and Women, c. 1490/95. Panel, 41 5 /i6 x I 8 V 2 (105 x 46
cm). National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Probably commis-
sioned by the Piccolomini family of Siena, as suggested by the family
emblem of crescent moons held by putti below the figure.

The occasion may have been the marriage of Silvio di Bartolommeo
Piccolomini, grand-nephew of Pope Pius II (see p. 359), in 1493.

368 *

THE QUATTROCENTO

right background. She thus proved her innocence to those
gathered on the left, near the city gate. Elegantly posed on
a pedestal before the narrative and landscape background,
Claudia wears a transparent veil that flows out to the
right, adding a slight suggestion of movement. The text on
the plaque held by putti below tells her story and states
that “Prudence and virtue triumph.”

Perugia

Located on top of a high hill in the Etruscan manner,
Perugia dominates a considerable section of modem
Umbria and southern Tuscany. Although the city embel-
lished itself with splendid buildings, and a number of
Roman, Florentine, and Sienese painters worked at nearby
Assisi, Perugia produced an important school of painting
only in the last decades of the Quattrocento.

Perugino

The leading painter of the Perugian School was Pietro Van-
nucci (c. 1450-1523). He was born in Citta della Pieve,

and is known today simply as Perugino (the Perugian). He
brought the city from artistic obscurity to considerable
renown and, as the teacher of Raphael, had a hand in
shaping the High Renaissance. Where Perugino received
his training is not known, but by 1472 he was a mature
master and a member of the Company of St. Luke in Flo-
rence. He may have worked with Verrocchio for a period,
and he certainly absorbed Florentine notions of perspective
and figure drawing, but he rapidly developed a distinctive
style. He had little interest in creating dramatic or emo-
tional religious images — Vasari said he was an atheist —
and he often reduced his figures to routine patterns. The
breadth and distance of his spatial backgrounds, however,
established a new type of composition that integrated
figures within the painted landscape. For a drawing by
Perugino, see figure 1.20.

The principles of Perugino’s spatial composition are
evident in Christ Giving the Keys to St. Peter in the Sistine
Chapel (figs. 14.16), part of the program commissioned
by Pope Sixtus IV in 1481 (figs. 14.17-14.18; see also pp.
332-34). Perugino represented the moment when Christ
gives Peter the keys to heaven and earth, and the structure

14.16. PERUGINO. Christ Giving the Keys to St. Peter, c. 1480-82. Fresco, IVSVi" x 18'8 Vi" (3.5 x 5.7 m). Sistine Chapel, Vatican, Rome.
Commissioned by Pope Sixtus IV. Like Botticelli, Perugino had to lodge a complaint against the pope in order to be paid for his work.

THE RENAISSANCE IN CENTRAL ITALY

369

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Vatican, Rome. Commissioned by Pope Sixtus IV della Rovcre. For another fresco in the cycle, see fig. 13.19.

SOUTH ALTAR WALL

3 70

THE QUATTROCENTO

Below: 14.18. Iconographic diagram of the side walls of the Sistine
Chapel.

Note: all frescoes on the altar wall were destroyed by Michelangelo
when he painted his Last Judgment (see figs. 20.1-20.4).

Frescoed Altarpiece

A. Assumption of the Virgin , by Pietro Perugino,

1481-82 (destroyed).

Frescoes of the upper walls

Old Testament Ltfe oe Moses, 1481-82:

OT-1. Finding of Moses, by Perugino (destroyed).

OT-2. Moses’ Journey into Egypt, by Sandro Botticelli.

OT-3. Moses in Egypt, by Botticelli.

OT-4. Crossing of the Red Sea, by Cosimo Rosselli.

OT-5. Adoration of the Golden Calf, by Rosselli.

OT-6, Punishment ofKorah, Dathan, and Abir am, by
Botticelli (fig. 13.19).

OT-7. Last Days of Moses, by Luca Signorelli.

OT-8, Contest over the Body of Moses, by Signorelli
(on east wall, destroyed)

Frescoes of the upper walls

New Testament Life of Christ, 1481-82:

NT-1. Nativity of Christ, by Perugino (destroyed).

NT-2. Baptism of Christ, by Perugino.

NT-3. Christ Heals the Leper, by Botticelli.

NT-4. Calling of the Apostles, by Domenico Ghirlandaio.

NT-5. Sermon on the Mount, by Rosselli.

NT- 6 . Christ Giving the Keys to St Peter, by Perugino
(figs. 14.16).

NT-7. Last Supper , by Rosselli.

NT- 8 . Resurrection of Christ, by Ghirlandaio
(on east wall, destroyed).

in the center of the piazza is doubtless intended to repre-
sent symbolically the Church as an institution, founded on
the “rock” of St. Peter. It is surely no accident that this
theme establishing the authority of the pope is opposite
Botticelli’s fresco showing the punishment of usurpers who
tried to assume the role of Moses (see fig. 13.19). Notice
too that the buildings in Perugino’s painting are in pristine
condition, in opposition to the decayed architecture
painted by Botticelli. Perugino’s central structure is flanked
by triumphal arches, modeled on Constantine’s arch in
Rome, and bearing inscriptions comparing the building
achievements of Sixtus to those of Solomon. In the middle
ground the scene in which Christ says “render therefore
unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s” (Matthew
22:21) is shown to the left; to the right is the stoning of
Christ, who, according to the Gospel of St. John, hid
himself, then passed through the midst of his assailants.

The perspective of the piazza is constructed according to
Alberti’s system, although with larger squares, probably to
avoid the visual complexity that would have resulted from
using the size of square — three for the height of a human
figure in the foreground — that the Albertian system
recommended. The figures and drapery masses echo the
works of Florentine painters and sculptors from Masaccio
to Verrocchio, and the ideal church blends elements
drawn from the Baptistery of Florence and Brunelleschi’s
dome (see figs. 2.33, 6.7).

Tapestries designed by Raphael (conjectural placement),
1515-16:

R-l. Conversion of St Paul (fig. 17.58).

R-2. Blinding of Elymas.

R-3 . Sacrifice at Lystra.

R-4. St Paul in Prison.

R-5. St Paul Preaching at Athens (for cartoon, see fig. 17.59).
R-6. Stoning of St. Stephen.

R-7. Miraculous Draught of Fishes.

R-8. Christ’s Charge to Peter.

R-9. Healing of the Lame Man (for cartoon, see fig. 17.57).
R-10. Death of Ananias.

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NORTH WALL

ENTRANCE WALL

THE RENAISSANCE IN CENTRAL ITALY * 371

The fresco’s effect of openness, however, is strikingly un-
Florentine. While frames, figures, or architecture usually
enclose Florentine spatial compositions, Perugino allows
the eye to wander freely through his piazza. It is filled with
little but sunlight and air, and we can easily imagine its
continued extension to the sides. No such immense urban
piazza was ever built in the Renaissance; it would have
been impractical and hardly a good example of urban
planning. But in Perugino’s painting it provides a sense of
liberation, as if the spectator could move freely in any
direction. The buildings block the climax of the perspective
scheme, but the viewer’s eye moves easily to the horizon,
where the hills form what has been called the “bowl
landscape” characteristic of the paintings of Perugino and
his followers.

Perugino’s figures are only superficially Florentine, for
they stand with comparable ease, free from tension. Their
poses are repetitive: one foot generally carries the weight,
with the hip slightly moved to the side, one knee bent, and
the head tilted, the figure as a whole seeming to flow gently
upward. Raphael adopted this pose from Perugino, and it
survived, in altered and spatially enriched form, to the
final phases of his art. Like those of the other collaborators
in the Sistine frescoes, Perugino’s main figures occupy a
shallow foreground plane, and the grace of their stance,
united with flowing drapery and a looping motion in the
composition, carries the eye almost effortlessly across the
foreground from one figure to the next. Perugino’s fresco
is one of the most impressive examples of the Quattrocento
interest in illusionism.

Perugino has been credited with the supervision of the
entire cycle because he painted not only this subject —
which is of primary importance to papal claims — but also
other important scenes in the chapel and the frescoed altar-
piece of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, which was
destroyed when Michelangelo painted his Last Judgment
on the altar wall (see fig. 20.1). It is not clear, however, if
one artist served as the supervisor; none of the painters
called to Rome had had much experience with monumen-
tal frescoes and all were relatively young.

Even before Michelangelo’s ceiling and Last Judgment
additions, the chapel’s scale, decoration, and iconography
had established it as one of the grandest examples of
Italian art.

Perugino’s Crucifixion with the Virgin and Sts. John,
Jerome, and Mary Magdalene (fig. 14.19) differs from
Florentine representations of this scene in the absence of
strong emotion. Christ hangs calmly on the cross and none
of the saints betrays a trace of grief. We are surprised,
moreover, to note that Mary Magdalen’s pose is almost a
carbon copy of John’s; there is no difference between them,
save for a slight change in the position of the clasped

Opposite: 14.19. PERUGINO. Crucifixion with the Virgin and
Sts. John, Jerome, and Mary Magdalene, c. 1482-85. Oil on panel,
transferred to canvas: center, 39 15 /i6 x 22 V 4' 1 (101.5 x 56.5 cm);
laterals, each 3 7 Vs x ll 7 /s" (95 x 30.1 cm). National Gallery of Art,
Washington, D.C. (Mellon Collection). Probably commissioned by
Bartolommeo Bartoli, Bishop of Cagli and Confessor of Pope Sixtus
IV, who presented it to S. Domenico, San Gimignano.

This painting was once in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg,
Russia. It was purchased with twenty other important paintings
(including figs. 13.20 and 16.45), from the Soviet government by the
American banker Andrew W. Mellon in 1931 as part of a nucleus of
paintings to establish an American National Gallery of Art. Technical
examination has revealed that a pounced drawing was used for the
arms of Christ.

hands. Perugino seems to have made a pattern book of
stock poses and to have repeated them even within the
same picture, such repetition helping to create the calm,
lucid quality. In the final analysis, the color of the painting
is so cool and silvery, the finish so sensitive and exact,
and the mood so poetic that the absence of emotion seems
completely appropriate.

The fantastic rocks are characteristic of an eroded
plateau in the upper Arno Valley, and the jagged profiles
and sparse foliage against the sky are exploited for artistic
effect, as are the floating S-curves of Christ’s loincloth.
Such detailed realism shows the influence of Netherlandish
painting, in particular, Hans Memling. Much of the
picture’s effect is gained from the precision with which
leaves, twigs, wildflowers, and a castle or two are repre-
sented against the backgrounds of earth or sky. The
flowers in the foreground are botanically accurate, and
each has a symbolism relating to the altarpiece’s content.

It seems that Memling also influenced Perugino as a por-
traitist. Francesco delle Opere (fig. 14.20) is the direct
ancestor of portraits by Perugino’s pupil Raphael, such as
those of Angelo Doni and Maddalena Strozzi Doni (see
figs. 16.49-16.50). The subject is placed behind a ledge —
a typical Netherlandish device — on which he rests his
hands, one of which holds a scroll bearing the motto
TIMETE DEUM (“Fear God”). An expanse of sea forms
the distant horizon, in front of which rises the carefully
observed head, the hair streaming out naturally against the
sky. This typical Perugino sky graduates from milky blue at
the horizon to a clear, deep blue at the zenith. The balanc-
ing of mass and void, the harmonizing of the contours of
the sitter with those of the sloping hills and feathery trees,
and the sense of quiet and easy control that seems to

372

THE QUATTROCENTO

emanate from Francesco delle Opere all mark a new stage
in the development of portraiture.

Like all central Italian painters who made their reputa-
tions in the 1470s — save only Leonardo da Vinci — Perug-
ino arrived at the threshold of the High Renaissance but
did not cross it. The grand style emerged in Florence and
developed in Rome, while in Perugia Perugino continued
to paint his oval-faced Madonnas and serene landscapes.
Ironically, Perugino outlived his pupil Raphael, one of the
leading artists of the High Renaissance, by three years.

14.20. PERUGINO. Francesco delle Opere. 1494.

Panel, 20 7s X 167s 11 (51 x 42 cm). Uffizi Gallery, Florence.

THE RENAISSANCE IN CENTRAL ITAL Y * 373

Pintoricchio

The works of the Perugian painter Bernardino di Betto (c.
1454-1513), known by the nickname “Pintoricchio,” (the
suffix “-icchio” means small, so “small painter”) are impressive
accomplishments in pictorial representation, combined with
an interest in clear narrative and sumptuous decorative
detail. The success of his work cannot be gauged by repro-
ductions, even in color, because so much of his paintings’
appeal depends on their large scale and relationship to
the spaces for which they were created. A co-worker of
Perugino in the Sistine Chapel frescoes, Pintoricchio later
painted an apartment in the Vatican for Pope Alexander
VI, as well as chapels and ceilings in Roman churches. His
largest work is the fresco cycle in the Piccolomini Library
of the Cathedral of Siena, commissioned in 1502 by Cardinal
Francesco Piccolomini to celebrate the life of his uncle,
Pope Pius II (figs. 14.1, 14.21-14.22). After the death of
Alexander VI in 1503, Cardinal Piccolomini succeeded

him as Pope Pius III, but lived to reign less than a month.
Nevertheless, the fresco series financed by the Piccolomini
heirs kept Pintoricchio busy until 1508.

The library was built to house the manuscripts assem-
bled by Pius II (Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini), one of the most
learned humanists of his age. After his election as pope, he
poured the revenues of the papacy into this library. The
frescoes narrate an embellished version of his life before
and after his election. Their flattery contrasts with the salty
memoirs of the pope himself, which, though long suppressed
except in an expurgated version, furnish us with a vivid
account of mid-Quattrocento events. The ten compart-
ments are framed by illusionistic pilasters with grotteschi
decoration, and by jambs and arches decorated with simu-
lated red and white marble paneling. The grotteschi motifs
are derived from Pintoricchio’s visit to the Golden House
of Nero in Rome, where he, like Ghirlandaio, carved his
name into the ancient plaster to commemorate his visit. We
look through the arches of this gigantic loggia into scenes

14.21. View of the fresco program in the Piccolomini Library, ii Cathedral, Siena. 1503-8. Fresco.

The exterior facade of the library, on the interior of Siena Cathedral, is decorated with marble architectural motifs and sculptures and a pair of
bronze gates. The contract that Pintoricchio signed set the total price at 1,000 gold ducats; he received 200 ducats immediately to pay for pigment
and gold leaf and another 100 ducats for what we might call "moving expenses” for himself and his assistants, one of whom was the young
Raphael. Raphael provided Pintoricchio with compositional drawings for at least three of the ten scenes, including fig. 14.1. Pintoricchio received
50 ducats when each large narrative scene was completed, and another 200 ducats when the job was complete. After the patron died in 1503, his
heirs commissioned Pintoricchio to add an eleventh large narrative on the exterior of the library representing Cardinal Francesco Pintoricchio’s
coronation as Pope Pius III. The library thus commemorates both Piccolomini popes, Pius II and Pius III.

3 74

THE QUATTROCENTO

ENTRANCF WALT

14.22. Icoaographic diagram of Pintoricchio’s fresco program in the Piccolomini Library, Cathedral, Siena. Diagram by Sarah Cameron Loyd,
after Roettgen. For number 1, Departure of Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini for Basel, see fig. 14.1.

from Aeneas Silvius’s life. The pageant-like incidents
display a panoply of colorful clothing against fanciful
architectural or landscape backgrounds, except when a
recognizable setting was required by the narrative.

In figure 14.1, the youthful Aeneas Silvius, secretary to
a cardinal, is represented leaving Genoa for the Council of
Basel, where his performance was so disloyal to the papacy
that he had to do penance before Pope Eugenius IV. To the
right we see ships at anchor in port, while at sea the cardi-
nal’s galleys are lashed by a storm. Genoa, of course, never
looked like this; Pintoricchio instead represented an Italian
hill town with a Romanesque church and a castle on top
of the hill. But if his representation of Genoa is derived
from local experience, so is his storm. One of the earliest
realistic storm scenes preserved, it is made convincing by
the dark veils of rain, bent by the force of the wind, and
the dramatic color of the thunderclouds.

While Pintoricchio was working on the library frescoes,
he also designed a panel for the inlaid marble floor of
Siena’s Duomo. The cathedral’s paving, with narratives
and allegories including an enormous Massacre of the
Innocents by Matteo di Giovanni (see p. 364), took more
than a century and involved many artists. Because the
Sienese had been unsuccessful in expanding their cathedral
in size, they apparently decided to ornament it as richly as
possible. This unique floor is one of the results; while other
cathedrals and churches have floors with a few figures
surrounded by many panels of geometric patterning made
largely of marble fragments, the Sienese floor is almost
completely filled with narratives and figures. Unfortu-
nately, over the centuries the scenes have been worn away
by worshippers and visitors.

The theme Pintoricchio was assigned was The Allegory
of Fortune (fig. 14.23), a subject laden with the complex
symbolism so popular with the humanists of the period.

14.23. PINTORICCHIO. The Allegory of Fortune. 1505-6. Inlaid
marble in diverse colors; partially reworked by Leopoldo Maccari
in 1859. It Cathedral, Siena. Commissioned by Alberto Aringhieri,
rector of the cathedral. This panel is in the nave, fourth from the
entrance (see fig. 2.26). Vasari wrote that the inlaid marble floor of
Siena Cathedral was “the most beautiful ... great and magnificent
pavement ever made.”

THE RENAISSANCE IN CENTRAL ITALY * 375

The designer of the program is unknown, but it required
Pintoricchio to combine a number of diverse allegorical
and historical figures, all executed in a naturalistic, Quat-
trocento manner, into a rather uncomfortable whole. Vir-
tuous behavior is represented by the seated figure of
Wisdom at the apex of an island, who honors Socrates
with a palm while the cynic philosopher Crates on the
right throws away jewels to indicate his disinterest in
wealth. Other pilgrims aspire to reach Wisdom, leaving
behind the unpredictable Fortune, who stands unsteadily
with one foot on a ball and the other on a ship that is buf-
feted by the changeable winds.

Melozzo da Forli

Every now and then in Italian art, an innovative painter
develops in a center that lacks a local school of painting.
Gentile da Fabriano was such a case, as was Piero della
Francesca and, a little later, Melozzo da Forli
(1438-1494). Perhaps their isolation helped to make them
among the most original of Renaissance artists. Forli, the
city of Melozzo’s birth and early activity, is in the
Romagna — at the time a string of papal-dominated com-
munes along and near the Adriatic. This area is not far
from Ravenna, where the renowned mosaics may have
inspired the young Melozzo in the use of color and the
combination of figures with architecture. Before Melozzo
was thirty Giovanni Santi, father of Raphael, praised his
work, as did other Quattrocento writers, but by the time
Vasari published the first edition of his Lives in 1550,
Melozzo had been forgotten and Vasari credited the
frescoes reproduced here to Benozzo Gozzoli. Melozzo’s
detachment from the creative centers of Tuscany and
central Italy and the limited number of his surviving works
mean that even today he is often overlooked.

Melozzo began visiting Rome as early as 1460, and from
about 1465 to 1475 may have been at the court of Urbino,
where he would have worked for Federico da Montefeltro
and come into contact with Piero della Francesca.
Although Piero was certainly the dominant influence on
his art, Melozzo’s perspective interests seem to have been
established even earlier. He probably encountered Alberti
in Rome, and was certainly familiar with his teachings. He
must also have been impressed by Netherlandish art, par-
ticularly that of the Fleming Justus of Ghent, who was
active at Federico’s court. Melozzo may have known
Mantegna’s work through Ansuino da Forli, who worked
for a period with Mantegna in Padua.

One of Melozzo’s commissions was for a series of fres-
coes in the Vatican Fibrary, which had been rebuilt and
reorganized by Pope Sixtus IV. Most of the frescoes have
perished, but Sixtus IV della Rover e, his Nephews , and

Platina, his Librarian was removed and saved (fig. 14.24).
It is the first surviving papal ceremonial portrait of the
Renaissance (as distinguished from tomb effigies or por-
traits of popes disguised as their Early Christian predeces-
sors in the paintings of Masaccio, Masolino, and Fra
Angelico). The fresco once adorned the end wall of the
library and was undoubtedly integrated with other decora-
tion painted there by Domenico del Ghirlandaio and his
brother Davide.

Painted piers within the fresco frame an audience
chamber in the Vatican where the pope sits in a Renais-
sance armchair upholstered in velvet and studded with
brass-headed nails. The four standing figures are portraits
of his nephews, including, in the center, Cardinal Giuliano
della Rovere, who later became Pope Julius II. Before him
kneels the humanist Platina, the library’s director, who
points downward to a Fatin inscription he composed
to extol the pope’s achievements in restoring Rome. To
heighten the illusion, Melozzo allowed the folds of
Platina’s cloak to overlap the frame.

The vanishing point of the architecture is level with the
pope’s knee. The room, not large by Renaissance stan-

14.24. MELOZZO DA FORLI. Sixtus W della Rovere, bis
Nephews , and Platina, his Librarian, c. 1476-77. Fresco, detached
from the Vatican Library and transferred to canvas, 13'1 " x 10'4"
(4x3 m). Pinacoteca, Vatican, Rome. Commissioned by Pope Sixtus
IV della Rovere.

376 .

THE QUATTROCENTO

dards, is impressive in its simple masses and clear orna-
mentation. Through an arch we see a transverse chamber
with an arcade and coffered ceiling. Rosettes, palmettes,
acanthus, bead-and-reel, and other ornaments from
ancient Roman architecture are emphasized in gold. The
entwined oak branches silhouetted against blue on the
foremost piers refer to the coat of arms of the Della Rovere
family of Sixtus IV and Cardinal Giuliano; oaks and
acorns reappear in the Sistine Chapel frescoes commis-
sioned by Giuliano after he became pope.

Melozzo avoided a formal grouping, yet each person is
motionless, each face firmly composed and staring directly
ahead. Melozzo’s substances are solid, his drapery forms
crisp, and his color beautiful, the display of crimson,
violet, ultramarine, and blue-green intensified by the
coolness of the pearly marble piers and the sparkle of the
gilded ornament.

Melozzo’s grandest commission, an apse fresco of the
Ascension of Christ for the Early Christian basilica of Santi
Apostoli in Rome, may have been given to him by Cardi-
nal Giuliano della Rovere, whose titular church, San Pietro
in Vincoli, was not far away. It has also been suggested
that Pope Sixtus IV paid for the project. The pope
consecrated the remodeled basilica in 1480, but it is not
certain that the decorations were complete at that time. In
the early eighteenth century the church was remodeled
again, and Melozzo’s fresco destroyed except for the
central section and a number of fragments. From these it
is possible to gain some notion of the appearance of
the composition.

At the base of the apse a row of apostles stood looking
up. A semicircle of angels playing musical instruments sur-
rounded the central figure of the ascending Christ (fig.
14.25), who appears in the middle of clouds and putti, his
arms extended, his hair and beard floating in the breeze,
his eyes gazing downward. All the figures were painted as
if seen from below, in the sharp foreshortening artists had
been using since the days of Castagno and Uccello. But, as
far as we know, this is the first time that a large-scale,
monumental composition was painted to be seen from
below in such a way that the mass of the building seemed
to dissolve, creating the illusion that the figures hover in
the air outside. Melozzo’s composition inspired many
ceiling painters, from Michelangelo, Raphael, and Correg-
gio in the sixteenth century (see figs. 17.23, 17.71, 18.39)
to the later painters of the Roman Baroque and Venetian
Rococo. Melozzo’s idea was not wholly original. A vault is
often termed “il cielo” (“the sky”) in Italian documents,
and the traditional association of the dome with heaven
goes back to antiquity. It is even possible that a similar
mosaic originally decorated the apse of Santi Apostoli. But
the crucial step — the erasure of the dome or half-dome by

creating a vision into space — was taken by Melozzo.
The central figure of Christ hints at the openness of
Melozzo’s lost composition, but the full effect of even this
fragment cannot be experienced unless you hold the illus-
tration above eye level and tilt it slightly toward you. Then
Christ appears to float on the clouds, as Melozzo
intended — an effect that is even more powerful, of course,
when the figure is seen full scale. Melozzo’s insistence on
solid form is as strong here as in the Sixtus IV , yet in this
case the winds of heaven themselves seem to blow through
the composition. As usual with Melozzo, the color is bril-
liant, the putti boasting red and green wings, the white
cloak and violet tunic of Christ glowing against the sky,
and the haloes dotted with gold, achieving in fresco some-
thing of the sparkle of mosaic.

As the official artist to Sixtus IV, Melozzo enjoyed the
title of “pictor apostolicus” (“apostolic painter”). After his
success as a painter of monumental frescoes, one wonders
why he was not among the artists commissioned to paint
in the Sistine Chapel; none of the artists the pope called to
Rome for that commission had as much experience. In any
event, Cardinal Girolamo Basso della Rovere, one of

14.25. MELOZZO DA FORLl. Christ in Glory, from the
Ascension, c. 1479-80. Fragmentary fresco detached from the church
of SS. Apostoli, Rome. Quirinal Palace, Rome. The patron was
Cardinal Giuliano della Rovere.

THE RENAISSANCE IN CENTRAL ITALY

3 77

Sixtus’s nephews who appears in the group portrait, called
Melozzo to Loreto, on the Adriatic coast, to decorate the
sacristy of the basilica of the Santa Casa (fig. 14.26). This
remarkable building, a favorite project of the Della Rovere
family, was being constructed by Giuliano da Sangallo to
enshrine a simple hut, the holy house (Santa Casa) of the
Virgin Mary, which tradition held had been brought from
the Holy Land to Loreto by angels in the thirteenth
century. Melozzo completed only the frescoes in the dome,
although the commission called for wall paintings as well.
Nevertheless, it is his only cycle that survives unaltered in
its original location, since his ceiling decorations for San
Biagio in his hometown of Forli were obliterated by a
bomb in World War II.

Melozzo painted each facet of the dome with ornamen-
tal paneling composed of his favorite elements —
guilloches, acanthus, bead-and-reel, palmettes, and dol-
phins — converging on a central garland of Della Rovere
oak leaves that embraces the cardinal’s coat of arms. In
front of this illusionistic structure Melozzo rendered
figures that seem to be sitting or floating in the actual
space of the sacristy. The painted cornice framing the dome

14.27. Angel, detail of fig. 14.26.

14.26. MELOZZO DA FORLI. Fresco cycle. 1477— 80( ?).
Sacristy of St. Mark, Basilica of the Sta. Casa, Loreto.
Commissioned by Cardinal Girolamo Basso della Rovere.

is treated as a parapet, and on each segment sits a prophet
holding a tablet with his name and a passage from his writ-
ings prophesying the Passion; the one exception is David,
who holds his harp, while his tablet is propped beside him
on the ledge. Above each prophet hovers an angel holding
one of the instruments of the Passion. Above the angels, as
a kind of repetition of the garland of oak leaves, is a circle
of six-winged seraph heads. Melozzo even exploited such
details as the soles of the angels’ feet, shod or unshod, seen
from below, and made the angels’ wings cast shadows on
the painted architecture of the dome so that they hover
more convincingly in the space above our heads (fig.
14.27). The drapery glows with Melozzo’s usual brilliance
of color, and every face and lock of hair is painted with his
customary firmness.

In 1484 Melozzo returned to Forli, possibly because of
the death of his patron, Sixtus IV.

The Laurana Brothers and Urbino

In the late Quattrocento, Urbino was an important cultural
center (see pp. 288-93). The sculpture and architecture
that played a role in establishing the city’s artistic
significance were in part the work of two Slavic brothers
born in Dalmatia. This area of the Adriatic coast had been
colonized by Venetians and was open to the influences of
Italian culture.

378

THE QUATTROCENTO

The sculptor Francesco Laurana (c. 1420-1503) was
active in Naples, Palermo, and Milan, as well as in France.
His portrait bust of Battista Sforza, countess of Urbino
(fig. 14.28), whom we have already met in Piero della
Francesca’s profile portrait (see fig. 11.31), is typical of his
ideals of elegance. This serene head has much in common
with the heads in Piero della Francesca’s Arezzo frescoes
(see figs. 11.23-11.24) because of Francesco’s insistence on
geometric or quasi-geometric volumes and clear contours.
The transitions from shape to shape seem simplified but in
reality they are rich and subtle. When compared to Quat-
trocento male busts, however (see figs. 10.28, 12.15), this,
like most of the female busts of the time, seems relatively
characterless, revealing and perhaps propagating the
restrained role women were expected to play in society.

After an extended” search for an artist “learned in the
mysteries” of classical architecture, in 1468 Federico da
Montefeltro announced that he could find no one in
Tuscany, “ fountainhead of architects, ” and appointed
Francesco Laurana’s brother Luciano (d. 1479) as chief
architect of his enormous unfinished palace. Luciano had
probably already been at work on the project for two
years, for he had sent a model for the building from

14.28. FRANCESCO LAURANA. Battista Sforza. c. 1473.
Marble, height approx. 20" (51 cm). Museo Nazionale del Bargello,
Florence. Perhaps commissioned by Federico da Montefeltro.

Mantua in 1466. Luciano is only one of several architects
listed in the Urbino records as working for Federico,
however, and it is hard to distinguish who might have
designed what. One of the most impressive spaces of
the Palazzo Ducale is its courtyard (fig. 14.29), the con-
struction of which can be dated during the years of
Luciano’s activity. It is therefore generally assumed that he
was its architect.

In contemplating the design of the courtyard, we must
mentally strip away the two upper stories, added later, and
imagine that the structure ends with the cornice of the
second story. Thus reduced, the courtyard emerges as
among the most harmonious constructions of the Renais-
sance. Luciano adopted the proportional scheme popular-
ized by Brunelleschi, for each bay of the lower floor is
an exact square articulated by semicircular arches. The
second-story windows are two-thirds the height and one-
third the width of each bay. But Luciano avoided some
major Florentine difficulties. First, he managed to unite
both stories with a single scheme, so there is no longer the
sense of a solid second story weighing down upon an open
arcade. He achieved this by giving the second story an
order of Corinthian pilasters that harmonize with the
Composite columns of the arcade and by setting these
stone pilasters against a wall of the tan brick that is also
used in the spandrels of the arcade below. The columns,
pilasters, entablatures, and windows are set off against
brick walls to give the Palazzo Ducale the appearance of an
open framework — an effect unprecedented in Renaissance
architecture. Secondly, Luciano turned each corner in a
way that completes both corner arches instead of having
them come to rest on the same capital, in the rather
uncomfortable way we found in Florentine courtyards (see
figs. 6.26, 12.18). This problem necessitated even greater
ingenuity. Luciano decided to treat each face of the court-
yard as if it were a separate facade, complete in itself. He
therefore terminated each side of the arcade and piano
nobile with superimposed pilasters.

Whether or not Luciano’s solutions are fully consistent
with the doctrines of Alberti, they probably would have
pleased him. Certainly the theorist would have enjoyed —
and possibly did — the friezes ornamented with inscriptions
extolling Federico’s virtues in handsome capital letters in a
style derived from ancient Roman monuments. As com-
pared with the verticality and density of Florentine Renais-
sance architecture, the columns, pilasters, windows, and
even the letters of the inscriptions are widely spaced,
emphasizing the horizontality of the courtyard. The skill
with which the intricate problems of form and space are
solved and the consequent effect of harmonious calm mark
a determined step in the direction of High Renaissance
architecture. Bramante, born in Urbino and twenty-four

THE RENAISSANCE IN CENTRAL ITALY * 379

14.29. LUCIANO LAURANA. Courtyard, Palazzo Ducale, Urbino. c. 1467-72. Later completed by Francesco di Giorgio. Commissioned by
Federico da Montefeltro. Many of the interior rooms have doors, windows, consoles, and fireplaces decorated with exquisite carvings in the
Renaissance style.

years old at the time of Luciano’s appointment, found his
own artistic origins in this building, and the young
Raphael also walked through these perfect arcades.
In all probability we should look to Urbino for the origin of
two panels, now in museums in Urbino (fig. 14.30) and
Baltimore (not illustrated), which show piazzas bordered by

palaces and centering around monuments of a more or less
classical nature. A number of solutions, none wholly con-
vincing, have been suggested to explain the purpose of
these panels. While the execution of the Urbino panel has
been attributed to Piero della Francesca or a close follower,
the design of both panels has been assigned to Luciano

14.30. LUCIANO LAURANA (design attributed to; perhaps painted by PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA). View of an Ideal City. Third
quarter of fifteenth century. Panel, 23 5 /s x 78 3 /4" (60 x 200 cm). Galleria Nazionale delle Marche, Palazzo Ducale, Urbino.

380

THE QUATTROCENTO

Laurana. The best support for this theory is the characters
in the very faint, ruined inscriptions at the upper left and
right in the Urbino panel, which are Slavic, and probably
Old Church Slavonic, written in Cyrillic characters.

As in the courtyard of the Palazzo Ducale, the three-
story palaces are built on the principle of open framework
filled in by screen walls, and the arcaded facades of both
palaces at the right terminate, before reaching the corner in
order to avoid corner columns. The general feeling of
openness in the proportions and spacing is similar to that
of the Palazzo Ducale and quite opposed to the tensions of
Florentine architecture in general and Giuliano da San-
gallo’s in particular (see figs. 12.20-12.21). Some of the
ideas are unprecedented, such as the rows of pediments
crowning some of the palaces, and the entire cityscape
clearly represents the kind of civic center that the Early
Renaissance wanted to build but could never achieve
except on a modest scale at Pienza (see figs. 10.10-10.11).
A stable society under autocratic rule was required for the
realization of the kind of ideal city shown in the Urbino
panel. This had to await the later sixteenth century and
found its full fruition only in the Baroque period.

The round building in the center is more perfect in its
simplicity than most of the centralized structures built
during the Renaissance. The small upper-story windows
correspond perfectly to Alberti’s desired “temple” illumi-
nation (see p. 246). The building was surely intended to
represent an Albertian “temple” located at the center of
an ideal city and dominating the law court, here repre-
sented by the three-aisled basilica at the right, which
lacks any religious reference. This representation of an
ideal temple may have inspired the Tempietto by Bramante
(see fig. 17.9).

Ideal illusionistic architectural perspectives like the
Urbino panel are also characteristic of intarsia — the panels
of inlaid wood used in the Quattrocento and Cinquecento
to decorate small rooms and choir stalls. A good example
is the intarsia decoration of Federico da Montefeltro’s
study in Urbino (figs. 14.31-14.32), where his manuscripts
were kept and where he read, standing, at a desk from
which he could look out through marble arches to the
blue mountains of his domain. The unknown designer of
the intar sie may have worked from designs or suggestions
by Luciano.

14.31. GIULIANO DA
MAIANO. Studiolo of Federico
da Montefeltro. 1470s. Intarsia ,
height of intarsia 7'3 " (2.2 m).
ft Palazzo Ducale, Urbino.

The upper portion of this room
was hung with twenty-eight
paintings of famous learned men,
seen here in reproductions.

A similar intarsia studiolo made
for Federico’s palace at Gubbio is
now displayed at the Metropoli-
tan Museum of Art in New York.

THE RENAISSANCE IN CENTRAL ITALY • 3 8 I

14.32. Detail of fig. 14.31.

called “the finest since antique times” by Vespasiano da
Bisticci, the Florentine humanist and bookseller who
helped compile the collection. In his Lives of Illustrious
Men of the XVth Century , Vespasiano described the duke’s
commitment to learning:

We come now to consider in what high esteem the duke held
all Greek and Latin writers, sacred as well as secular. He
alone had a mind to do what no one had done for a thousand
years or more; that is, to create the finest library since ancient
times. He spared neither cost nor labor, and when he knew
of a fine book, whether in Italy or not, he would send for it.
It is now fourteen or more years since he began the library,
and he always employed, in Urbino, in Florence and in other
places, thirty or forty scribes in his service.... He sought all
the known works on history in Latin . . . likewise the histories
of Greek writers done in Latin, and the orators as well. The
Duke also desired to have every work on moral and natural
philosophy in Latin, or in Latin translations from the Greek.
As to the sacred Doctors in Latin, he had the works of all
four.... He had an edition of the Bible made in two most
beautiful volumes, illustrated in the finest possible manner
and bound in gold brocade with rich silver fittings.... Like-
wise all the writers on astrology, geometry, arithmetic, and
De re Militari ; books on paintings, sculpture, music and
canon law. In medicine all the works of Avicenna, Hip-
pocrates, Galen....

There were all the works of modern writers beginning with
Pope Pius; of Petrarch and Dante in Latin and in the vulgar
tongue . . . also the complete works of Aristotle and Plato; of
Homer.... And besides the Holy Scriptures, there are books
in Hebrew on medicine, philosophy, and the other faculties.

As in many intarsia schemes (see fig. 12.16), the decora-
tion here simulates cabinets and niches; on the lower level,
with its latticed compartments, one door appears to be
open to show the contents. Above this is a zone of orna-
ments, including the symbols of the duke, then a frame-
work of pilasters, between which one seems to look
into niches with statues; into cabinets containing books,
a candle, an hourglass; into a cupboard filled with the
duke’s armor; and into an architectural perspective
with a distant view of mountains and lakes. All this is, of
course, immediately recognizable as illusion because of its
execution in wood. Federico’s study offers a glimpse of
how the intellectual refinements of an ideal life could be
concentrated within the confines of a tiny chamber, in an
exquisite decoration executed with illusionistic skill to
please a Renaissance prince.

The studiolo housed the most important of approxi-
mately 900 manuscripts that made up Federico’s library.

Federico’s handwritten and illuminated copy of Dante’s
Divine Comedy (fig. 14.33) has illustrations by Guglielmo
Giraldi (active 1445-89). The duke’s arms and other
symbols and mottoes play a major role in the decorative
scheme; note especially the angled arms held by an eagle
above the large illustration on the page shown here.
In Gothic manuscripts such pages were surrounded by
freely drawn leafy patterns, but here the rigor of discipline
is evident in the complex knot pattern around the
outside of the page and the carefully organized rinceau
designs of the initial P and the area to the right of the large
illustration. The main scene, showing Dante and his guide
Virgil meeting with Cato, is framed within a pilastered
niche, which is itself enclosed within columns on high
pedestals. This sumptuous late fifteenth-century page
illustrating an early fourteenth-century text indicates the
splendor that was typical of life in the north Italian courts
at this time.

382

THE QUATTROCENTO

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14.33. GUGLIELMO GIRALDI. Frontispiece to Purgatory from Federico da Montefeltro’s manuscript of Dante’s Divine Comedy, c. 1477-82.
Tempera and gold on vellum, 14 3 A x 9 1 A" (37.8 x 24.1 cm). Rome, Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS. Urb. Lat. 365,
fol. 97. The manuscript was handwritten by Matteo de’ Congugi of Volterra, probably in 1477 or early 1478. It was incomplete at the duke’s
death in 1482. The three small scenes are Dante Bathing his Hands in the Dew of the Meadow (lines 121-5), Virgil Wiping Away the Tears
from his Face (lines 126-29) and Virgil and Dante on the Shore with the Mountain of Purgatory. Federico’s collection was purchased for the
Vatican Library by Pope Alexander VII in 1657.

THE RENAISSANCE IN CENTRAL ITALY • 383

Naples

The transition from ruler to ruler in Italian centers of
power was often difficult, especially if there was no natural
male heir. Although the Spaniard Alfonso of Aragon was
adopted in 1421 as the heir of Queen Giovanna II of
Naples, who was childless, he was not able to claim his

inheritance until 1443. The Neapolitan castle that Alfonso
then built to convey his power and control is a traditional
fortification of the type developed during the Middle Ages,
with five crenellated towers and a surrounding moat. It is
the elegant, marble, Renaissance-style triumphal arch (fig.
14.34) that marks the entrance, a signal that this is
home to a prince with humanist aspirations, that makes it

14.34. PERE JOAN, PIETRO DA MILANO, and others. Triumphal Arch of King Alfonso of Aragon. 1453-58 and 1465-71. Marble
triumphal arch. Castello Aragonese (Castel Nuovo), Naples. Commissioned by King Alfonso I.

384 * THE QUATTROCENTO

exceptional. Alfonso, a student of ancient writings, sur-
rounded himself with learned scholars.

The main narrative scene, above the lower arch, repre-
sents Alfonso’s triumphal entry into the city in 1443, when
a temporary triumphal arch, perhaps similar to this one,
was erected. In the carved marble version recording the
event, the king is shown elevated on a canopied cart drawn
by horses and accompanied by retainers. The motif of
paired columns framing an arch on two levels is based on
ancient Roman triumphal arches, and the winged victories
holding wreaths in the spandrels of the upper arch are
drawn from the same source. The style of relief carving
also emulates Roman art. The four figures in shell niches
near the top are Virtues, suggesting that these are among
the personal attributes of the king. Reclining figures in
the topmost arch hold cornucopia as a reference to
the prosperity Alfonso will bring to the city and region.
The culminated figure is Alfonso, who is represented
wearing ancient armor. Although the carving is less skillful
than we have seen in Florence and elsewhere, the arch
communicates the expectation that Alfonso’s reign will

bring to Naples a return to the grandeur of the Roman
imperial past.

Luca Signorelli

The final artist to be considered in this chapter might also
have been placed somewhat later in the book, but because
his style is still largely Quattrocento in effect, he has been
included at this point in our discussion. Luca Signorelli
(after 1444—1523) was born in Cortona, a Florentine
subject town in southern Tuscany. According to Vasari, he
was trained initially by Piero della Francesca and later
went to Florence, where he worked for many years and
was influenced by the works of Antonio del Pollaiuolo in
particular. He was called to Rome to complete the cycle of
frescoes on the walls of the Sistine Chapel (see pp. 333-34,
369-70), which had apparently been left unfinished by the
group of painters assembled by Pope Sixtus IV. He painted
for the Medici during the late 1480s and early 1490s, and
his Court of Pan (fig. 14.35) was influenced by the classi-
cism of the circle surrounding Lorenzo the Magnificent,

14.35. LUCA SIGNORELLI. Court of Pan. c. 1496. Panel, 6'4 1 h" x 8'5" (1.95 x 2.56 m). Formerly Berlin, destroyed 1945.
Probably painted for Lorenzo de’ Medici.

THE RENAISSANCE IN CENTRAL ITALY • 385

who greatly revered this sylvan deity. The painting shows
Pan instructing a group of largely nude divinities and aged
shepherds in the art of music, using flutes cut from reeds.
In this re-creation of classical antiquity, the crescent moon
hangs over the mythological god’s head, and the light of
late afternoon models the figures like so many statues in
the Medici gardens.

Signorelli’s fascination with the human body in motion
is demonstrated on a grand scale in the San Brizio Chapel
frescoes in the Cathedral of Orvieto, painted from 1499 to
1504 (fig. 14.36). Fra Angelico had begun a fresco cycle
illustrating the Last Judgment in the chapel in 1447, but
finished only two compartments of the vaults before being
called to Rome by Pope Nicholas V. Signorelli was origi-
nally employed to finish the vaults; in 1500 he won the
assignment to paint the walls as well.

One step into the interior, and we are caught up in a
world of terrible action, for here are shown the six
episodes of the end of the world. The Resurrection of the
Dead (fig. 14.37) was the most ambitious nude composi-
tion of its day. Responding to the trumpets’ call, the nudes,
who are so sharply defined that they almost seem to be
made of stone or wood, crawl out of the plain before us
and strut or dance about, sometimes embracing amiably,
sometimes in conversation with skeletons who have yet to
get their flesh back. At the top, raised wax nodes that have
been gilded catch the light and produce a glittering effect;
such nodes were also used by Raphael to create a similar
effect in the Disputd (see fig. 17.49).

The wildest scene is the Damned Consigned to Hell (fig.
14.38). The armored archangels Michael, Raphael, and
Uriel guard heaven while demons with bat-like wings carry
off protesting mortals through the air. The foreground is
filled with a howling tangle of devils and mortals on whom

specific torments are being inflicted. While one woman lies
on her stomach, a demon lifts her foot and tears her toes
apart. Other demons rip off ears or sink their teeth into
their victims. The brilliant coloring enhances Signorelli’s
wild imagination and rather rude vigor; the tan and white
flesh tones themselves are vivid enough, but the skin of the
demons often varies from orange to lavender and green on
the same figure. Signorelli employed several assistants and,
as a result, some details are clumsy, but the effect of the
cycle as a whole is beyond anything that had been seen in
Italy before, and it is still overwhelming.

One important area of Italy has been neglected while
we have been studying the Quattrocento developments
in Florence, Rome, Naples, Tuscany and Central Italy.
It is now time to turn our attention to the art that was
created during the same time period in Venice and
Northern Italy.

Opposite , top: 14.37. LUCA SIGNORELLI. Resurrection of the
Dead. 1499-1504. Fresco, width approx. 23' (7 m). S. Brizio Chapel,
Cathedral, Oriveto. Commissioned by the Opera of Orvieto
Cathedral.

Opposite , bottom: 14.38. LUCA SIGNORELLI. Damned
Consigned to Hell. 1499-1504. Fresco, width approx. 23' (7 m).

S. Brizio Chapel, Cathedral, Orvieto.

14.36. Iconographic diagram of Luca Signorelli’s fresco cycle in the S. Brizio Chapel, Cathedral, Orvieto. Computerized reconstruction by Sarah
Cameron Loyd, after Roettgen.

386 *

THE QUATTROCENTO

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GOTHIC AND RENAISSANCE IN
VENICE AND NORTHERN ITALY

T he Po Valley — an area that includes the cities
of Bergamo, Verona, Vicenza, Cremona, and
Pavia — had been transformed politically and
socially during the Trecento by the rise of
tyrannies (see p. 149). During the Quattro-
cento these centers were often the scene of flourishing
court life and artistic activity. The most splendid of the
smaller courts were those at Mantua, under the Gonzaga
family, and at Ferrara, ruled by the Este. Milan, under the
Visconti dukes and later their relatives the Sforza, became
one of the richest and most powerful principalities in
Europe, able to attract important and well-known artists.

On the other side of the peninsula, Venice was beginning
to turn its attention to the Italian mainland, largely
because the loss of its outposts and commerce to the
Ottoman Empire forced the city to look toward Europe for
trade. Venice began to take control of inland bases — in
part to protect new trade routes over the Alps — and
Padua, Treviso, Vicenza, and Verona all became subject
cities. In 1498 the lion of St. Mark, symbol of Venetian
authority, appeared on the ramparts of Bergamo, from
which, on clear days, Venetian soldiers could glimpse the
Cathedral of Milan. There were conflicts with the French
conquerors of Milan at the end of the Quattrocento, and
in the early Cinquecento the League of Cambrai, which
included every major power in Western Europe, arrayed
itself against Venice. The city survived, however, maintain-
ing its land power and much of its maritime empire until
1797, when Napoleon disbanded the republic. Among the
smaller northern Italian states, only Mantua and Ferrara

were able to keep their independence throughout the
Renaissance, probably because they were buffer states for
both Milan and Venice. The flowering of Venetian Renais-
sance art, as we shall see, dates from the period of Venet-
ian continental expansion.

In the early Quattrocento, Lombard naturalism (see figs.
5.21, 5.24) had a powerful effect when imported to
Florence by Gentile da Fabriano (see figs. 8. 2-8.4). But in
general it was Florentine artists who migrated northward.
Paolo Uccello visited Padua and Venice in 1421, as did Fra
Filippo Lippi in 1433-34 and Andrea del Castagno in
1442-43, while Donatello was in Padua from the early
1440s to the 1450s. During the Quattrocento, the Renais-
sance was still largely a Florentine import, and only in the
works of Domenico Veneziano (see figs. 11.7-11.11) did
Venetian ideas and inventions have any lasting impact on
Florentine art. But before the end of the Quattrocento,
Venetian painters began to develop a style that would gain
for Venice a special importance in the history of painting.

Pisanello

After Gentile’s death, the tradition of northern Italian
naturalism was continued in the work of his associate and
follower Antonio Pisanello (before 1395-1455). Although
from a Pisan family — hence his name — he was born in
Verona. As a young man, he worked with Gentile on fres-
coes in the Doge’s Palace in Venice that do not survive.
After Gentile’s death he continued Gentile’s work in Rome.
He seems never to have worked in Florence.

Opposite: 15.1. GIOVANNI BELLINI. Enthroned Madonna with Saints (San Zaccaria altarpiece). 1505. Canvas, transferred from panel,
1 6 ' 5 V 2 " x 7'9" (5 x 2.4 m). fl S. Zaccaria, Venice. The altarpiece was truncated at the top and perhaps at the bottom when it was taken by
Napoleon’s troops to Paris in 1797. See also fig. 15.44.

GOTHIC AND RENAISSANCE IN VENICE AND NORTHERN ITALY * 3$9

Above : 15.2. ANTONIO PISANELLO. St. George and the Princess, c. 1437-38. Fresco, 7'4" x 20'4"
(2.23 x 6.2 m). Pellegrini Chapel, Sant’ Anastasia, Verona.

15.3. ANTONIO PISANELLO. Study of the Head of
a Horse, c. 1437-38. Pen, 10 7 /s x 7 3 M" (27.6 x 19.7 cm).
Cabinet des Dessins, the Louvre, Paris.

15.4. ANTONIO PISANELLO. Study of Hanged Men.
c. 1433. Pen over metalpoint, llVs x 7 5 /s" (28.3 x 19.4 cm).
British Museum, London.

390

THE QUATTROCENTO

Compared with contemporary Florentine art, or even
with Pisanello’s northern Italian Trecento predecessors (see
fig. 5.19), the fresco of St George and the Princess (fig.
15.2) seems static; people and animals do not even look at
each other. But the fresco — or what is left of it, since much
of the ornament was painted a secco and has peeled
away — is a tour-de-force of naturalistic detail. Pisanello’s
animals come out of the Lombard tradition; his sketch-
books record the textures of fur and feathers and the
details of animal structure (fig. 15.3); in the finished fresco
the hunting dogs and the horses pawing the earth seem
more real than the people.

Pisanello’s elegantly dressed figures — especially the
princess with her towering headdress and sleeves that
sweep to the ground — are reminiscent of those in Interna-

tional Gothic style paintings, and can also be related to his
watercolor designs for fashionable costumes. In contrast,
the low hills and details of the towers, domes, and spires
of a northern Italian city reveal Pisanello’s interest in rep-
resenting the real world. At the left are fields and farms
and the sea with a ship under sail. Before the city gates two
decomposing corpses hang from a gallows, probably an
indication of justice in practice (fig. 15.4). The soldiers in
the middle distance show Asian facial features observed
from the Mongol or Tartar slaves who were not uncom-
mon in Italy at this time.

When the fresco was in good condition, the effect of
animals and figures must have been impressive; Pisanello’s
surviving drawings suggest that they were precisely drawn,
beautifully shaded, and convincingly projected in depth.

15.5. ANTONIO PISANELLO. Vision of St. Eustace, c. 1440(?). Panel, 2 lV 2 x 25 3 /4" (54.5 x 65.5 cm). National Gallery, London. Incised gold
leaf is used for the saint's garments, and raised plaster covered with gold decorates the horse's harness, the hunting horn, and the saint’s spurs.

GOTHIC AND RENAISSANCE IN VENICE AND NORTHERN ITALY * 3 9 I

Pisanelio shows no interest in Florentine perspective, and
in this case he made no effort to achieve a unified space.
Yet at least one perspective drawing reveals that Pisanelio
understood the Florentine formula for spatial recession.
His surviving works indicate that he was more interested
in capturing the variety of the natural world than in sub-
jecting that world to a mathematical formula.

Pisanello’s animals take over in a panel that probably
represents the Vision of St. Eustace (fig. 15.5). While
hunting, Eustace was converted to Christianity when a stag
appeared with the crucified Christ between his antlers. The
legend refers to Psalm 42: “As the hart [deer] panteth after
the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.”
Eustace, dressed in courtly fashion, responds by lifting one
hand in mild astonishment, while his horse responds more
strongly, snorting, rearing back, and pawing the ground.
There is a second stag at the left, while a third drinks from
a stream enjoyed by swans, cranes, and pelicans, one of
whom is in flight. A bear inhabits the shadows toward the
upper right, and at least three varieties of hunting dog
crowd around the saint’s horse. One hound sniffs at an
offended greyhound, while a second greyhound gives chase
to a hare. The forest setting provides a background against
which the artist silhouettes the animals and birds. The text
planned for the scroll in the foreground was apparently
never added; what Pisanelio intended — a religious text, a
dedication from a patron, his signature — is unknown.

Pisanelio is credited with inventing the Renaissance por-
trait medal. Although Alberti anticipated this in his Self-
Portrait of about 1435 (see fig. 10.2), it was Pisanelio,
apparently inspired by ancient Roman coins and the
growing Renaissance notion of individual worth, who
established the regular form of the medal. This featured a
profile figure on the front, some kind of reference to the
sitter on the back, and identifying inscriptions and
mottoes, as well as the signature of the maker. The type
became popular and Pisanelio received commissions from
patrons in Mantua, Ferrara, Rimini, and Naples, while
other artists soon began making medals (see figs. 6.2-6. 3,
12.4-12.5).

Pisanello’s earliest medal commemorated the court visit
of the Byzantine emperor John VIII Palaeologus to Ferrara
in 1438-39 and was probably produced in 1439^-0. Over
the course of the next twenty-two years, he made more
than two dozen portrait medals. Here we illustrate the first
Renaissance medal of a woman, Cecilia Gonzaga (figs.
15.6-15.7), daughter of the marchese of Mantua. Cecilia
had learned ancient Greek by the age of seven and became
an accomplished classical scholar before entering a
convent in 1445. She died six years after the medal was
cast. Her virtue is expressed on the back in the form of a
partially nude woman who is probably an allegorical rep-

Above: 15.6. ANTONIO PISANELLO. Portrait Medal of Cecilia
Gonzaga , front. 1447. Bronze, diameter 3 5 /s" (8.7 cm; shown actual
size). The Louvre, Paris.

Cecilia was approximately twenty-one when the medal was cast.

The patron is unknown, but it was probably one of her relatives, for
Pisanelio also made portrait medals of Cecilia’s father, as well as her
grandfather, Gianfrancesco Gonzaga, and her tutor, Vittorino da
Feltre. The inscription on the front reads “Maiden Cecilia, daughter
of Gianfrancesco, first marquess of Mantua.”

15.7. ANTONIO PISANELLO. Reverse of fig. 15.6. Pisanello’s
signature on the stele reads “The work of Pisano the painter, 1447.”

392

THE QUATTROCENTO

resentation of Innocence; it was believed that the unicorn
accompanying her could be captured only by a virgin.

Early Quattrocento Art and
Architecture in Venice

When we turn to Venice we need to move back slightly in
time, to a period when the dominant style was still that of
the International Gothic. In terms of architecture, the most
splendid example of the style in Venice is the fantastic Ca
d’Oro (House of Gold; fig. 15.8). Protected by their canals,
Venetian palaces did not require the fortresslike construc-
tion we have seen in other Italian cities. Venetian builders
erected the facades of the palaces of the most important
families along the main thoroughfare, the Grand Canal,
following a system devised as early as the eleventh century.
Long rows of large arches and windows opened onto the
canal (the plots were deep and the canal facade provided
the best opportunity for lighting the interior), while on the
lowest story a multiple-arched entrance led from the

gondola landing into a courtyard with a wellhead, stair-
ways, and, perhaps, a small garden. While the Ca d’Oro
follows the traditional pattern, it is the brilliant variety of
its decoration that makes it the most spectacular Gothic
palazzo in the city. On the windows and loggia of the two
upper floors, above the simple arches of the entrance,
pointed arches with rounded and pointed quatrefoils in
stone tracery compete for our attention. The scalloped
cusping of the pointed arches sets up a contrapuntal effect,
while the tracery patterns of the windows to the right offer
additional variations on Gothic motifs. The Venetian sky
draws our attention to the top of the building, where a row
of exotic pinnacles based on the quatrefoil extend the
decoration upw ard; the balls at the end of each lobe are
among the details originally covered in gold leaf. The pale
red-and-white stone of the facade was originally enhanced
with varnish; when combined with the gilded details that
gave the palazzo its name, the effect must have been dazzling.

The International Gothic is also the style practiced by
one of the first important Venetian painters of the earlv
Quattrocento, Jacobello del Fiore (d. 1439). He signed the

15.8. GIOVANNI AND BARTOLOMEO BON, MATTEO RAVERTI, ZUAN DA FRANZA, and others. Ca d’Oro (Palazzo Contarini),
Venice. 1421-37. Istrian stone and red marble from Verona, with many details originally painted (the colors specified by the owner included
ultramarine blue, white, and black) and gilded, hence the name. Commissioned by Marino Contarini.

GOTHIC AND RENAISSANCE IN VENICE AND NORTHERN ITALY

3 9 3

15.9. JACOBELLO DEL FIORE. Justice with the Archangels Michael and Gabriel. 1421. Panels: center, 6'10" x 6'4 1 /2 11 (2.1 x 1.9 m);
left, 6' 10" x 4'4 1 /2 1 ' (2 x 1.3 m); right, 6’10"x5'4 ,, (2x1. 6 m). Accademia, Venice. Commissioned by the Magistrato del Proprio, the judges
concerned with property disputes.

huge triptych representing Justice with the Archangels
Michael and Gabriel (fig. 15.9) for the Doge’s Palace in
Venice in 1421. An exuberant Gothic frame encloses an
enthroned Justice holding a sword and flanked by lions.
Referring to both the throne of the wise Old Testament
ruler Solomon and the lion of St. Mark, the lions serve to
mark Justice as a particularly Venetian virtue. Some have
interpreted the figure as an allegorical representation of
Venice, who is often personified as a female figure. In the
left wing St. Michael slays a rather inoffensive dragon. To
the right Gabriel bears a lily, as if on his way to the Annun-
ciation; his scroll proclaims that he is announcing “the
virgin birth of peace among men” — a reference to the idea
that the coming of Christ marked a new era of justice in
human history.

This unusual surviving example of a civic picture
must have been intended for a chamber where judgments
and prison sentences were determined or announced.
There are lingering elements of Gentile’s art, especially in
the raised stucco modeling of the gilded portions, but Jaco-
bello here shows little interest in Gentile’s naturalism, the
flowing Gothic drapery of the figures instead dominating
the composition.

In 1444 Antonio Vivarini (c. 1418-1476/84) and his
brother-in-law Giovanni d’Alemagna (whose name means
“from Germany,” d. 1450), who both lived on the island
of Murano near Venice, signed and dated a large altarpiece
of the Coronation of the Virgin (fig. 15.10). International
Gothic, Byzantine, and Renaissance elements here blend in
a strange amalgam. Saints and prophets are seated in tiers

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15.10. ANTONIO VIVARINI and GIOVANNI D’ALEMAGNA.
Coronation of the Virgin. 1444. Panel, 7 ’6" x 5'9V2" (2.3 x 1.8 m).

S. Pantaleone, Venice.

3 94

THE QUATTROCENTO

15.11. JACOPO BELLINI. Madonna of Humility with Donor .
c. 1430. Panel, 23 x 16" (58.4 x 40.6 cm). The Louvre, Paris.
Perhaps commissioned by Lionello d’Este.

as if heaven were the apse of a gigantic church. Rows of
angels bring the altarpiece to a domelike top. The entire
center of the structure, from the checkered marble pave-
ment to the apex of the animated dome, is filled with a fan-
tastic throne containing Late Gothic motifs and spiral
columns — perhaps a reference to the Temple of Solomon in
Jerusalem — with foliated capitals. Between the columns
and around them, infants (probably the Holy Innocents,
the babies killed at the command of Herod) carry the
symbols of Christ’s Passion. On the upper story of the
throne, the back of which is formed by angels, God the
Father blesses Christ, who crowns his mother, while the
dove of the Holy Spirit hovers between them. At the
bottom right, St. Luke’s doglike bull cuddles beside his
master, who exhibits with pride his “portrait” of the Virgin
Mary in a Venetian Gothic frame; such examples provide
us with rare evidence about how paintings of the time were
framed. The painting of the faces and the handling of light
and shade suggest that Antonio and Giovanni had studied
the works made by Florentine visitors to Venice. The
Vivarini family and its pupils represent a conservative
current in Venetian painting through two generations and
even into the sixteenth century.

Jacopo Bellini

The family of artists that dominated northern Italian art
during the second half of the Quattrocento starts with
Jacopo Bellini (c. 1400-1470/71), who had been a pupil
and apprentice of Gentile da Fabriano, and includes his
two sons, Gentile (1429-1507) — named for his father’s
master — and Giovanni (c. 1430-1516), as well as his son-
in-law Andrea Mantegna (1431-1506).

Jacopo was highly regarded by northern Italian poets
and writers of his time. He was working in Ferrara for
Lionello d’Este in 1441 but may have been there earlier, for
the donor in his Madonna of Humility with Donor (fig.
15.11), which is dated about 1430, is probably Lionello.

his Virgin of Humility, seated low on a cushion, rises
grandly against the sky. The words on her halo, “Hail
Mother, Queen of the World,” help explain her dominance
of the landscape and may also hint at the donor’s political
aspirations. The tiny scale of the kneeling donor is an
archaism that recurs even in the Cinquecento. A semicircle
of trees, a deer grazing in their shadow, separates the
sacred figures from an ambitious landscape. Jacopo’s
vision here takes in farms, castles, cities, and the magi on
horseback riding toward a shed in which the Holy Family
may be dimly seen. The distant mountains are conven-
tional in shape, but the manner in which their summits are
touched with light renders them convincing. Even more
persuasive is the sky, with its low banks of clouds illumi-

nated from below by this same light, apparently the last
glow of afternoon. The soft, heavy atmosphere common in
northern Italy appears here for the first time in painting,
but such clouds, with gently glowing undersides, reappear
often in the art of Jacopo’s son, Giovanni. Jacopo does not
seem to be interested in the perspective unity sought by
Florentine painters, but his figures are convincingly pro-
jected in space, as is the Christ Child’s halo. Despite the
bulk of the figures, remnants of the International Gothic
style survive in the treatment of the Virgin’s drapery.

Jacopo’s extraordinary imagination is seen in his surviv-
ing drawings, made on sheets of parchment or paper,
which would not have survived had they not been organ-
ized into bound volumes. They were probably intended as
model books to be used in his workshop and by his descen-
dants — as indeed they were — and also as a record of his

GOTHIC AND RENAISSANCE IN VENICE AND NORTHERN ITALY * 395

Left: 15.12. JACOPO
BELLINI. Nativity , from a
model book. 1440s. Leadpoint,
ll 3 /8 x 16 7 /s" (29x42.7 cm).
The Louvre, Paris.

style and attainments. The two books that survive, one of
drawings on paper in the British Museum, the other, on
parchment, in the Louvre, are datable to about 1450.
Their subjects range from the scriptural to the mythologi-
cal, the archeological and the fantastic. They were inher-
ited by Gentile Bellini, who had his father’s rubbed and
faded leadpoint drawings in the Paris volume retouched in
pen; those in London remain in leadpoint. The books were
consulted by Venetian painters, including Mantegna and
Giovanni Bellini, until well into the sixteenth century. The
drawings make it clear that Jacopo had learned the princi-
ples of Albertian perspective without losing his northern
Italian interest in a panoramic conception of nature. His
strict adherence to perspective occasionally resulted in
experiments in rapid recession that would be unlikely to be
transferred into paint, but his adoption of the system’s
single point of view enabled him to keep the horizon in its
proper place, to exploit glimpses of distant vistas between
foreground objects, and to dissolve the last vestiges of
medieval double scale in favor of a single scale that placed
feutfnan figures in a reasonable relationship to architectural
aod natural space.

In his Nativity (fig. 15.12), for example, Joseph sleeps in
ttie foreground and Mary is reduced to two-thirds his size
because, she kneels a little deeper into the space. Shepherds
and wayfarers continue the diminution systematically to
the walls and towers of Bethlehem at the base of the moun-
tains. Jacopo repeats some traditional Byzantine manner-
isms of landscape construction, while at the same time
leading our eye back to ever smaller hills, castles, and

15.13. JACOPO BELLINI. Flagellation, from a model book,
c. 1450. Leadpoint on parchment, with later pen retouching,

1 6 3 / 4 x IIV 4 " (42.6 x 28.6 cm). The Louvre, Paris.

396 .

THE QUATTROCENTO

cities visible between the supports of the shed. Renaissance
order has been imposed on the miscellaneous world of
northern Italian art, the interest in the variety of nature
remaining undiminished.

Jacopo’s Flagellation (fig. 15.13) is dominated by an
enormous Gothic palace, vaguely similar to the Doge’s
Palace in Venice, with an open loggia, balconies, and clas-
sical reliefs and statues. Only after exploring the diverse
spaces do we notice Christ, tied to a column in the loggia,
and Pilate, who sits in a niche while bystanders look on
idly. The figures nearest us, who are irrelevant to the nar-
rative, are, in accordance with perspective, larger than the
two protagonists.

In these drawings, Jacopo shows that this is the way
even important events happen: not neatly centered and
aggrandized, but as part of a universal texture of experi-
ence in which many of the characters simply go about their
daily lives. Jacopo’s daring adoption of Albertian perspec-
tive gave him a powerful instrument to demonstrate his
views and, moreover, to assert the northern tradition that
nature is dominant over humanity.

Andrea Mantegna

Andrea Mantegna, who married Jacopo Bellini’s daughter
Nicolosia in 1453, was the leading Quattrocento painter of
the northern Italian mainland. Born in 1430 or 1431 near
Padua, he was adopted and trained by Francesco Squar-
cione — painter, collector, art dealer, and entrepreneur —
who seems to have employed several talented apprentices
whose services he farmed out to prospective patrons. Even-
tually, Mantegna freed himself from Squarcione, but not
without legal difficulties. When the artist was eighteen (so
young that his contract had to be signed by his older
brother), he was already engaged in painting a fresco series
in Padua, working with the Venetian team of Antonio
Vivarini and Giovanni d’Alemagna and the Paduan
Niccolo Pizzolo. Giovanni died in 1450, Vivarini withdrew
in 1451, and in 1453 Pizzolo was killed in a quarrel. A new
contract in 1454 assigned some of the subjects to Man-
tegna and others to two minor artists, both of whom with-
drew. When Mantegna finished the cycle, sometime before
February 1457, he was only twenty-six years old, but the
Ovetari frescoes demonstrate that his remarkable new style
was already formed.

In the second register above the floor, Mantegna painted
two scenes from the life of St. James, the Baptism of Her-
mogenes (fig. 15.14) and St. James before Herod Agrippa
(fig. 15.15). The two are united by a common perspective
scheme, with the vanishing point centered on the frame
between them. To enhance the illusion, putti are hanging
garlands of fruit and flowers around the Ovetari and

Capodilista arms, which seem to be suspended in front of
the narratives in the actual space of the chapel. In these
first mature works, Mantegna demonstrated what he had
learned during his training with Squarcione, combined
with the compositional designs of his father-in-law, the
principles of linear perspective (which were to fascinate
him for the rest of his life), and, above all, the style of
Donatello as demonstrated in his recently completed reliefs
for the nearby church of Sant’Antonio (see figs.
10.25-10.26). The marble pavement on which Hermo-
genes kneels is continuous with that of the square in front
of the throne of Herod Agrippa and forms a perspective
grid that establishes the relative sizes of the figures. At this
moment not even Piero della Francesca could produce so
doctrinaire a demonstration of Albertian perspective.

But this Tuscan rationalism is joined with a northern
Italian emphasis on detail. The architecture of classicizing
piers and arches, decorated with an apparently invented
“classical” relief depicting the familiar Renaissance detail
of a foreshortened horse seen from the rear, leads to a
potter’s shop offering a variety of jars and cups set on a
wooden counter. The water striking Hermogenes’s bald
cranium splashes outward into a fountain of separate
drops. A typical detail of Mantegna’s attention to realistic
detail is the infant at the left, who wants to take part in the
ceremony but is restrained by the older boy who leans
against the pier. On the right, St. James is brought before
Herod Agrippa in front of a Roman triumphal arch that is
not a copy of a Roman example but something even more
impressive: a re-creation of Roman art in an Albertian
manner. Mantegna belonged to a group of humanists in
Verona who constituted themselves into an academy, going
for boat rides on Lake Garda, reading from classical
authors, and making archeological investigations. Man-
tegna must have made drawings of classical remains that
he could use whenever he needed a specific detail.

The atmosphere in these two images is so clear that
every element is visible with biting clarity, to the last tree
and castle on the farthest hill. The experience of studying
Donatello’s sculptures seems to have made Mantegna more
sculptural in his paintings than even Donatello was in his
highly pictorial reliefs. The figures are so sharply modeled
by the light — which, like that of Masaccio in the Brancacci
Chapel (see fig. 8.7), is painted so that it follows the direc-
tion of the light entering from the chapel windows — that
they almost seem carved in stone. Cloth does not fall over
the limbs in masses, as in the paintings of Masaccio and his
followers, but clings like the clay-soaked cloth of
Donatello’s figures (see fig. 7.12).

In the midst of the solemnity of St. James’s judgment,
Mantegna engages the viewer by the inclusion of unex-
pected details: the boy who holds the soldier’s shield and

GOTHIC AND RENAISSANCE IN VENICE AND NORTHERN ITALY * 397

15.14, 15.15. ANDREA MANTEGNA. Baptism ofHermogenes (left) and St. James Before Herod Agrippa (right). 1454-57 (destroyed 1944).
Frescoes, width of each 10'9" (3.3 m). Ovetari Chapel, Eremitani Church, Padua.

The frescoes were commissioned with money from the estate of Antonio di Biagio degli Ovetari by his wife, Imperatrice Capodilista, and members
of her family. During World War II, American bombs intended for nearby railway yards fell wide of their mark and demolished much of the east end
of the church; all our illustrations are from photographs taken prior to the bombing. The fragments that survived in the rubble are now mounted
in the rebuilt chapel on photographs of the fragmented frescoes.

wears his enormous helmet looks to the right, for example,
while the eyes on the shield look just as sharply to the left;
and the sword has been neatly placed parallel to the trans-
versals of the pavement. The representation of the soldier
leaning against the frame at the left, with an expression of
inner torment, has long been thought to be a self-portrait
(fig. 15.16). The face corresponds to the difficult, domi-
neering character we know from documents and resembles
the bust in Mantegna’s tomb chapel in Mantua.

The lowest register of frescoes of the life of St. James
begins just above eye level; we seem to be looking up at an
elevated stage (figs. 15.17-15.18). Thus, following per-
spective theory, we can see no ground plane; the figures
move downward as they recede from us. Only the feet of
the figures nearest to us can be seen (some even seem to
break through the picture plane), while others are cut off
by the edge of the stage. In St. James Led to Execution , we
look up at heads popping out of windows in the buildings

15.16. Self-portrait. Detail of fig. 15.15.

398

THE QUATTROCENTO

15.17, 15.18. ANDREA MANTEGNA. St James Led to Execution (left) and Martyrdom of St. James (right). 1454-57 (destroyed 1944).

Frescoes, width of each 10'9" (3.3 m). Ovetari Chapel, Eremitani Church, Padua.

above us, and the realistic effect is further enhanced by the
random placing of medieval structures in a curving street,
their arches and battlements rendered with the same atten-
tion to detail as the classical elements. The coffering of the
arched gateway is also seen from below. But a moment’s
reflection will disclose that if Mantegna had been consis-
tent, he would also have made the verticals converge as
they rise, in conformity to our viewpoint below. That he
did not do this is doubtless due to his unwillingness to
violate the verticality of the wall on which he was painting
and, in consequence, the architectural structure of the
chapel itself.

Here again Mantegna captured many facets of the
human experience, setting each into its correct relationship
in space. A penitent breaks from the crowd to receive the
blessing of the saint, for example, while a soldier uses a
staff to hold back a woman who wishes to follow. Man-
tegna’s sense of form invests humble faces with majesty,
and the sad countenance of the saint has the same lapidary
clarity as the masonry blocks in the buildings.

The Martyrdom of St. James depicts the saint’s behead-
ing. St. James lies prone, foreshortened in depth, under a
blade that will slide down in channels between two posts.
An executioner is about to strike the blade with a gigantic

mallet; when the blow falls, it seems that the severed head
will roll out into the chapel. Although this is difficult to see
in photographs, the illusion is increased by the rail of the
sapling fence, painted so that it seems to overlap the
painted frame, and by the soldier who leans forward over
it. A powerful tension in depth is established by the rise of
the hill, its ancient ruins illuminated against the sky, to a
castle on the hilltop. As we wait for the blow to fall, we
note that a bough has snapped at the top of the tree in the
foreground, the executioner’s sleeve is at this very moment
ripping with the strain, and a gigantic crack cuts through
the castle keep from the top almost to the foundation. The
contrast between this tension and the calm of the soldiers
idly watching the execution encourages the observer to
identify with the event through suspense and apprehen-
sion. That we look up into the saint’s face as he is about to
die renders our apprehension almost unbearable.

Mantegna’s first major altarpiece is still in its original
position on the high altar of the huge Romanesque church
of San Zeno in Verona (figs. 15.19-15.20). Often charac-
terized as a pictorial version of Donatello’s lost altarpiece
for Sant’ Antonio in Padua (see p. 258), the altarpiece may
well reflect some of the sculptor’s architectural and figural
arrangements. The wooden frame has been transformed

GOTHIC AND RENAISSANCE IN VENICE AND NORTHERN ITALY

3 99

15.19. ANDREA MANTEGNA. Enthroned Madonna and Child with Saints (San Zeno altarpiece). 1456-59. Panel, height (2.2 m).

m S. Zeno, Verona. Commissioned by Gregorio Correr. The frame is original, but it has lost whatever decoration was placed in the center of the
pediment. The predella panels shown here are copies; the originals were taken by Napoleon and are now in French museums (see fig. 15.21).

4 0 0

THE QUATTROCENTO

into a carved and gilded facade, its pediment and entabla-
ture supported by four columns that seem to be attached
to painted piers. Together the real half-columns and
painted piers seem to form one side of a square loggia
defined by piers within the painting. In the center of this
loggia, the Virgin sits on a classicizing marble throne. To
the sides, eight saints, meditating or conversing, diminish in
size as they recede from us. The brilliant colors of their robes
stand out against the veined marble of the painted archi-
tecture, the blue sky, and Mantegna’s icy white clouds. Gar-

lands of fruits and flowers, a rosary, and an egg symboliz-
ing the Virgin Birth, as in Piero’s Madonna and Child (see
fig. 11.30), hang between the columns and piers; a burning
oil lamp is suspended from the egg. Around and below the
throne, putti sing or strum on lutes. The manner in which
the Asian rug below the Virgin’s feet conceals the sculpted
putti of the pedestal is a surprisingly witty touch; we want
to lift the rug to examine the rest of Mantegna’s invention.

The brightness of the colors and gold, the powerful
architectural masses, the sharp definition of the forms, and

15.20. Detail of fig. 15.19.

GOTHIC AND RENAISSANCE IN VENICE AND NORTHERN ITALY

4 0 1

the consistency of the spatial formulation combine to
create an illusion of reality that must have been overpow-
ering at the time. This is an important reminder for today’s
viewers, who study the work as a painting and, accus-
tomed to photography, television, and computers, are
perhaps immune to some of the effects of visual reality
achieved by Mantegna. We have seen framing used to
similar illusionistic effect in Pietro Lorenzetti’s Birth of the
Virgin (see fig. 4.26), but most likely Mantegna had no
knowledge of that picture. A grand tradition of north
Italian illusionistic altarpieces starts from Mantegna’s
formulation here at San Zeno and continues into the
Cinquecento, as we shall see.

The tragic emotion expressed in the Crucifixion from
the predella (fig. 15.21) is so intense that in reproduction
it could be a monumental fresco rather than a small panel.
Golgotha — the place of the skull — is a rounded, skull-
shaped stone outcropping. The mundane details of how
the three crosses are set in holes in the rock and held in
place by wedges and boulders are typical of Mantegna’s
interest in the facts of everyday life. The ascending road,
behind the cross of Christ, is filled with crowds returning
from the spectacle of the Crucifixion. The crosses of the

thieves are turned inward and, following northern Italian
tradition, the thieves are tied to their crosses rather than
nailed. The cross of Christ is placed so that his toes,
deprived of the usual footrest, match the junction point
between two distant hills, and his body is silhouetted
against the sky. His arms stretched wide create a gesture of
suffering; the lines of the arms and turn of the head reflect
the horizontal clouds in the cold sky. The tragic contrasts
of the scene — the suffering women, whose haloes dissolve
into soft-edged, gold clouds, the indifferent soldiers, and
the beauty of the landscape and cityscape — make this small
picture one of the most memorable of the numerous
Crucifixions in Italian art.

In the Agony in the Garden (fig. 15.22), Mantegna
repeats the sharply defined sculptured forms, the enameled
brilliance of color, and the clarity of atmosphere of the San
Zeno altarpiece. The composition derives from a Jacopo
Bellini drawing, even to the ominous bird perched on a
dead branch, but the rock masses and human forms have
been subjected to Mantegna’s passion for definition. As in
all Mantegna’s early works, every stone, mountain, and
rabbit in the road are projected with flawless precision.
His Jerusalem is a mixture of the northern Italian cities he

15.21. ANDREA MANTEGNA. Crucifixion , from the predella of the San Zeno altarpiece (see fig. 15.19).
1456-59. Panel, 26 x 3 5 Vs" (66 x 89.2 cm). The Louvre, Paris.

4 0 2

THE QUATTROCENTO

15.22. ANDREA MANTEGNA. Agony in the Garden . c. 1460. Panel, 24 3 A x 3 IV 2 " (62.9 x 80 cm). National Gallery, London.
This painting may have been made for private devotional use, a function for which this iconography is appropriate. Mantegna’s
signature is inscribed, in Latin, on the rocks.

had seen and of Rome, which he knew only from drawings
and descriptions. Mantegna’s Christ confronts a row of
child-angels holding symbols of the Passion. The striking
foreshortening of one of the sleeping apostles may have
been suggested by a work of Paolo Uccello, now lost, that
Mantegna had seen in Padua or Venice. Down the road, in
the middle distance, Judas is bringing the Roman soldiers
to arrest Christ.

After years of negotiation, in 1459 Mantegna went
to Mantua as official painter to the court of Marquis
Ludovico Gonzaga. He worked there for nearly half a century,
becoming one of the first princely artists of the Renais-
sance, painting altarpieces and frescoes for churches, chapels,
and palaces, designing pageants, painting allegorical
pictures, and performing the many official tasks required
of a court artist.

Mantegna’s Foreshortened Christ (fig. 15.23) shows an
interest in foreshortening that probably stems from the
artist’s trips to Florence in 1466 and 1467, when he would
first have seen numerous examples of Florentine art. He
must have been impressed by the art of Castagno (whose
earlier works he had been able to study in Venice), espe-
cially the Vision of St. Jerome in Santissima Annunziata

15.23. ANDREA MANTEGNA. Foreshortened Christ. After
1466. Canvas, 26 3 /4 x 31 7 /8" (68 x 81 cm). Brera Gallery, Milan.
The painting was in Mantegna’s house at the time of his death.
In the inventory made at that time it was called Cristo in Scurto
(Foreshortened Christ ).

GOTHIC AND RENAISSANCE IN VENICE AND NORTHERN ITALY

403

(see fig. 11.17) and a Death of the Virgin , destroyed in the
seventeenth century but in Mantegna’s time in Sant’Egidio,
which showed the dead Virgin feet foremost. The Fore-
shortened Christ is painted on canvas and, therefore, may
have been intended as a processional banner for a society
or confraternity dedicated to the Corpus Christi (the mys-
tical adoration of the body of Christ). Alternatively, it may
have served as a private devotional image, perhaps for
Mantegna himself, given that it was in his possession when
he died. It shows the body of Christ lying on a marble slab
with a cloth over his legs and his head raised on a pillow.
In the Quattrocento, the death of Christ was frequently a
focus for personal meditation; the fifteenth-century
German mystic Thomas a Kempis, in his Imitation of Christy
urged readers to “dwell in the wounds of Christ.” Mantegna
asks his observers to do the same, his sculptural style giving
the body and wounds convincing three-dimensionality.
The perspective seems to catapult the body out of the
frame and even, we might say, into a willing observer’s
inner life. Nor can the viewer escape, since Christ’s feet,

projected from our point of view, follow us wherever we
stand in the gallery, and the wounds always lie open to
our gaze.

If you compare Mantegna’s depiction with a real figure
seen from this sharply angled viewpoint, you will note that
the head of Mantegna’s Christ is unnaturally large and his
feet unrealistically small, but you will also immediately
understand that a painting that captured these real pro-
portions would look ludicrous — gigantic feet would over-
whelm a tiny, distant head. Mantegna instead painted a
figure that we recognize immediately and in which we do
not sense any inherent disproportion, at least at first
glance. Here the Renaissance enthusiasm for foreshorten-
ing becomes a catalyst for emotional expression.

Mantegna’s interest in foreshortening also played a role
in the Camera picta (“painted chamber”) that he frescoed
for Ludovico Gonzaga and his family in one of the towers
of their castle (figs. 15.24-15.25). Over the fireplace Man-
tegna painted the marquis and the marchioness, Barbara
von Hohenzollern, with their children, courtiers, and favorite

15.24. ANDREA MANTEGNA. Arrival of Cardinal Francesco Gonzaga. Completed 1465-74. Fresco. Camera picta, Palazzo Ducale, Mantua.

404

THE QUATTROCENTO

dwarf. The parapet of the terrace where they are gathered
is formed of linked circles of white marble filled with disks
of veined marble — a motif that serves as a unifying element
throughout the frescoes of the room. To activate the scene
Mantegna showed a messenger who has brought the
marquis a letter and listens intently to the response. The
figure grouping creates an effect of natural spontaneity.
Portraits are rendered with Mantegna’s customary preci-
sion, but his style has changed since his earliest work. Now

the forms are less sculptural, and the color is gentler and
softer, without the harshness of the Ovetari frescoes or the
brilliant contrasts of the San Zeno altarpiece.

The paintings are continuous on two of the four walls
and across the vaulted ceiling. The scene taking place in
the right section of the adjoining wall (see fig. 15.24) has
not been identified with any known event and may be sym-
bolic. At the left stands Ludovico, at the right his older son
and successor, Federico, and in the center his second son,

15.25. ANDREA
MANTEGNA. Fresco cycle.
Completed 1465-74. Walnut
oil on plaster; size of room
26'6" x 26'6" (8x8 m).
Camera picta, Palazzo Ducale,
Mantua. Commissioned by
Ludovico Gonzaga. Ludovico
Gonzaga, his family, and
court are visible at the right.
The painted date 1465 that
marks the beginning of work
on the room looks as though
it is scratched into the plaster,
and thus it makes a clever
trompe Voeil effect. Mantegna’s
self-portrait, perhaps
functioning as a kind of
signature, is hidden in the
foliate decoration on the
painted pilasters. In 1475
an ambassador wrote to
Milan calling the Camera
picta “the most beautiful
room in the world.”

GOTHIC AND RENAISSANCE IN VENICE AND NORTHERN ITALY * 4°5

15.26. ANDREA MANTEGNA. Ceiling fresco. 1465-74. Diameter 8 ’9" (2.7 m). Camera picta,
Palazzo Ducale, Mantua. See also fig. 15.25.

Cardinal Francesco, who in 1472 was made titular head of
the church of Sant’ Andrea in Mantua (see figs. 10.7-10.9).
The background, perhaps meant to represent Rome, has
Roman ruins and statues outside its walls and a castle
above. In spite of losses, the glowing color is one of the
chief delights of the room. There is, however, a consider-
able difference in color between the ceiling, painted in
fresco, and the walls, which Mantegna carried out with a
vehicle that has been identified as walnut oil.

The frescoes on the vaulted ceiling create the illusion of
marble relief sculpture and gold mosaic. In the center,
unexpectedly, we seem to be looking straight up through
a cylindrical opening in this decoration, past a parapet that
matches the one in the group portrait, and out to the sky
(fig. 15.26). Foreshortened putti stand inside the rim,
while others poke their faces through what appear to be
openings, and laughing servants look over the edge at us.
As a final prank, Mantegna’s illusion includes a heavy tub

of plants perched precariously on the rim of the parapet
and supported by a pole that seems ready to roll away at
any moment.

In 1488 Mantegna made his first trip to Rome, where he
was able to study large numbers of classical antiquities, as
well as the frescoes painted for Sixtus IV in the Sistine
Chapel (see figs. 13.19, 14.16-14.18). From 1489 to 1490
he painted a chapel for Pope Innocent VIII, which was
destroyed in 1780 to make way for a new wing of the
Vatican Museums.

Mantegna’s late style, after his sojourn in Rome, is rep-
resented by the Madonna of the Victory (fig. 15.27). The
painting was carried through the streets after a military
victory, which explains why it was painted on canvas
instead of wood, the medium used consistently for paint-
ings at this time. Two military saints, Michael and George,
and Andrew and Longinus, patron saints of Sant’ Andrea
in Mantua, accompany the armored Gonzaga marquis.

406 *

THE QUATTROCENTO

15.27. ANDREA MANTEGNA. Madonna of the Victory.
1495-96. Tempera on canvas, 9'2” x 5T0" (2.8 x 1.8 m). The
Louvre, Paris. Commissioned by Marchese Francesco II Gonzaga of
Mantua to celebrate his victory over King Charles VIII of France and
the French armies at the Battle of Fornovo, July 6, 1495. Francesco
later wrote that in the thick of battle we “sought refuge with our
whole mind in the most certain protection of Mary, spotless Mother
of God. As soon as we had implored it, our courage was raised, our
strength was renewed, and ... our own enemies ... began to flee.”

Kneeling next to the infant John the Baptist at the right is
an old woman, probably St. John’s mother, Elizabeth. On
the pedestal a simulated relief shows the Temptation of
Adam and Eve, from whose sin Christ and the Virgin have
redeemed humanity. The figures are enclosed in a bower of
orange trees framed by a carved wooden arch with pal-
mette decoration. From the apex of the bower an elaborate
branch of rose-colored coral — efficacious in warding off
demons and the evil eye — hangs from an early form of the
rosary composed of coral and crystal beads. In the open-
ings of the bower, parrots and cockatoos add more bril-
liant touches of color to this sumptuous work.

Bacchanal with a Wine Vat (fig. 15.28) suggests the
influence of Antonio del Pollaiuolo’s Battle of the Nudes
(see fig. 13.5) in the emphasis on large figures in the fore-
ground and in certain technical details. Mantegna’s re-
creation of an ancient wine-making festival seems to have
been based on Roman bacchic sarcophagi; note the central
figure, who is out cold, and the two putti passed out in
front of the vat, their little cup abandoned by their feet.

15.28. MANTEGNA. Bacchanal with a Wine
Vat. c. 1475. Engraving and drypoint, 12% x
17%" (32.4 x 45.2 cm). Metropolitan Museum
of Art, New York. Harris Brisbane Dick Fund,
1924 (24.8.3).

The plaque hanging on the grapevine above
the vat may have been intended for the artist’s
signature or for the date. Mantegna’s prints were
produced in small editions and only a few copies
of each survive.

GOTHIC AND RENAISSANCE IN VENICE AND NORTHERN ITALY

407

The god of wine, Bacchus, supports a cornucopia and is
being crowned with grapes (for Michelangelo’s later sculp-
ture of the crowned Bacchus, see fig. 16.36). Mantegna’s
art in general is scholarly and restrained but this ancient
theme seems to have encouraged his personal exploration
of its witty and even somewhat bawdy possibilities. In his
technique here Mantegna was experimental, using a dry-
point needle to produce various amounts of burr to
achieve subtle effects of light and definition. The weak def-
inition of certain lines in early examples of this print indi-
cates that Mantegna had technical difficulties; he seems to
have had trouble inking the plates, and, because no roller
press was apparently available, problems transferring the
ink from plate to moistened paper. Mantegna’s and Pol-
laiuolo’s prints reveal the earliest, experimental stages in
the development of the engraving technique in Italy.

Mantegna and Isabella d’Este

When Isabella d’Este, daughter of Ercole I, duke of
Ferrara, married Francesco Gonzaga in 1490, she became

Marchesa of Mantua and established herself as one of
the foremost patrons and collectors of art of the Renais-
sance. Isabella’s portrait is known in several examples,
including a drawing by Leonardo da Vinci and a painting
by Titian. Here we reproduce her personal gold version of
the portrait medal she commissioned (fig. 15.29); she pre-
sented bronze versions to important individuals, following
a tradition in the north Italian courts that developed after
the first medals were created by Pisanello (see figs.
15.6-15.7).

Approximately twenty thousand of Isabella’s letters
have been preserved as well as sixty thousand letters she
received. This voluminous documentation offers a rich
record of her life, collections, and patronage of scholars
and artists, who included Giovanni Bellini, Mantegna,
Lorenzo Costa, Leonardo, Perugino, Francesco Francia,
and Correggio. While many patrons developed a prefer-
ence for a single artist or a single style, Isabella’s artistic
taste evolved over time, from the Quattrocento styles of
Costa and Perugino to the High Renaissance styles of
Leonardo and Correggio.

15.29. GIANCRISTOFORO ROMANO.
Portrait Medal of Isabella d’Este . Cast 1498;
mounted c. 1507. Cast and chased gold, with
diamonds and enamel, diameter of medal
2 5 /s" (6.7 cm; shown actual size). Vienna,
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Miinzkabinett.

Medals such as this one were commissioned by
Renaissance rulers and others to be given as tokens
of honor and respect. Isabella presented bronze
and lead versions of this medal to scholars and
poets, and the text on the back reads “For Those
Who Serve Her.” This bejeweled example cast
in gold is the one she exhibited, paired with an
ancient cameo with profile portraits of the
Emperor Augustus and his wife Livia, in the
room she called her grotta.

408 * THE QUATTROCENTO

One of the humanists at Isabella’s court called her “The
Tenth Muse.” Many Renaissance women were accom-
plished musicians, but Isabella was unusual in that she
learned to play both plucked and bowed instruments, and
documents reveal that she commissioned new instruments
for the musicians who played at the Mantuan court. In
addition she raised seven children and frequently had to
run the Mantuan state when her husband was away or in
prison. After his death in 1519 she remained active in
affairs of state until her own death, twenty years later.

Isabella came from an art-loving family and her sister
and brother were both patrons (see figs. 19.13-19.14).
That Isabella was not only a patron but also a collector is
surprising, for this activity was limited almost exclusively
to men at this time. She wrote that she had an “insatiable
desire for antiquities,” and paired a Sleeping Cupid said to
be by the famous ancient Greek sculptor Praxiteles with a
sculpture of the same subject by Michelangelo; unfortu-
nately both works are now lost. When she could not
obtain the original, she would commission a reproduction;
one of her treasures was a small bronze version of the
Apollo Belvedere , the original being out of reach because
it was in the papal collection (see fig. 1.5). The Gonzaga
inventories disclose that her collection included paintings,
classical gems, coins, medals, precious and semiprecious
stones, vases, manuscripts, gold and silver work, and other
rarities. In addition, she had an important collection of
books. She did all this, and commissioned paintings from
major artists, on a limited budget.

Isabella was conscious of quality, and when she wanted
a set of majolica plates and bowls, she turned to one of the
most famous of majolica painters, Nicola da Urbino
(active 1520-1537/8). Her coat of arms is prominently fea-
tured on the pieces (fig. 15.30); in the example illustrated
it is centered while the arms of her husband are suspended
from a tree on the left. Most of the surviving pieces feature
scenes from Ovid’s Metamorphoses , and Nicola’s source
for several of these was a set of woodcuts for an Italian
version of Ovid’s tales published in Venice in 1497. The
scenes shown here center around the moment when
Daphne turns into a laurel tree to escape the advances of
Apollo (for Pollaiuolo’s painted version of this theme, see
fig. 13.8). The scenes of Cupid kindling Apollo’s love for
Daphne at the top, and, at the left, Apollo with the python
he killed, are all inspired by the 1497 woodcuts. The river
god at the bottom, however, who is Peneus, Daphne’s
father, to whom she prayed to be saved from Apollo, was
based on an ancient sculpture of a reclining figure in
Rome. Themes of love were popular with Isabella, and it is
likely that she dictated her choice of subjects to Nicola.

Isabella was a demanding patron, but probably no more
so than many male patrons of this period. In commission-

ing a painting from Perugino she outlined the subject
and its complex symbolism and even provided him with a
small drawing to follow as he developed the composition.
She took great pleasure in her studiolo and grotta , the
two chambers in the Gonzaga castle at Mantua that she
had decorated; they were not far from Mantegna’s paint-
ings in the Camera picta, commissioned by her husband’s
grandfather, Ludovico. In the studiolo she kept her library
and collections in carved and gilded wooden cabinets.
The ceiling was gilded and decorated with Isabella’s
private mottoes and emblems, and the walls were filled
with paintings, including two by Mantegna. The themes
for these studiolo paintings were probably devised by the
Mantuan poet Paride da Ceresara and the Venetian writer
Pietro Bembo. The role played by these humanists is a
reminder that many of the works created in this period
should be seen as collaborations between enlightened
patron, humanist iconographer(s), and creative artist(s).
Who played the lead role probably varied from commis-
sion to commission, but the input of the patron, who
was paying for the work, was unlikely to be ignored.

15.30. NICOLA DA URBINO. Broad-rimmed bowl with scenes
from Ovid’s Metamorphoses and the coat of arms of Isabella d’Este.
c. 1525. Majolica, height 10 5 /8" (27.1 cm). London, British Museum.
Presumably commissioned by Isabella d’Este.

The motto on the scroll below Isabella’s arms is “Without hope and
without fear.” This bowl was part of a service that was Nicola’s most
prestigious commission. In the next decade he made services for
Isabella’s son, Federico Gonzaga, 1st Duke of Mantua, and his wife,
Margherita Paleologo.

GOTHIC AND RENAISSANCE IN VENICE AND NORTHERN ITALY

409

One ot the paintings commissioned for Isabella’s studi-
qIq is Mantegna's Parnassus (fig. 15.31), in which Mars
embraces Venus in front of a bed perched on a natural
bridge. Cupid blows a dart toward Vulcan, Venus’
husband, who menaces the couple from a cavern illumi-
nated by the glow from his forge. In front of the bridge,
Apollo plays music on his lyre for a dance performed by
the Muses, while Mercury at the right leans gently against
the winged horse Pegasus. It is a classicizing fantasy, full of
complex patterns of line and form and the muted colors of
Mantegna’s late style. Replete with references to the
ancient sculpture that Mantegna had studied, the painting
probably celebrated the wedding of Francesco and Isabella
on February 11, 1490, when the planets Mercury, Mars,
and Venus all stood within the sign of Aquarius, as did the
westernmost bright star of the constellation Pegasus. Mars
and Venus have been interpreted as references to Francesco

and Isabella. Such self-referencing was to be expected in
the ratified setting of the Italian courts; also in Isabella’s
studiolo was Lorenzo Costa’s Garden of the Peaceful Arts ,
an allegory of the court at Mantua with Isabella being
crowned by Cupid, and Mantegna’s Pallas Expelling the
Vices from the Garden of Virtue , in which Pallas is an
allegorical representation of Isabella. The colors of Mars’
garments, Venus’ scarf, and the coverings of the bed in the
Parnassus are the mingled colors of the Este and Gonzaga
families. The painting, its elements doubtless specified by
Isabella, was, then, clearly an allegory of marital harmonv,
under which the arts, led by music, would flourish.

Mantegna’s death in 1506 was felt as a personal tragedy
by the Gonzaga family, for whom he had worked for
nearly half a century. His fame was international; the
German artist Albrecht Durer was on his way to visit
Mantegna when death intervened.

15.31. ANDREA MANTEGNA. Parnassus, c. 1495-97. Canvas, 5 '3 lfa/1 x 6'3AV (1.59 x 1.92 m). The Louvre, Paris. Commissioned by
Isabella d^Estc for her studiolo in the Gonzaga Castle, Mantua.

4 10

THE QDATTROC B’N T O

Gentile Bellini

In Venice, meanwhile, the Bellini brothers were creating a
new style. The older Gentile won a number of large, offi-
cial commissions and was painting for a similar kind of
public as Ghirlandaio, recording the Venetian scene as
faithfully as Ghirlandaio did that of Florence. His Proces-
sion of the Relic of the True Cross (fig. 15.32) was painted
for the Scuola di San Giovanni Evangelista. The scuole
(schools) of Venice were not educational institutions as the
name might suggest but confraternities of the same type as
the Misericordia in Florence. Their members, who tended
to come from the middle class, gathered for religious cere-
monies and to do good works within the city. Needless to
say, there was a certain amount of competition among the
scuole , whose headquarters always included a large hall
that was used as a combined hospice for the poor and hos-
pital ward, a chapel, and often a meeting room as well. In
a damp climate not conducive to fresco paintings, works
on canvas formed suitable decorations for these public
rooms, and series of large, framed narrative scenes for the
scuole make up a large part of the production of some
Venetian artists. While these series were usually dedicated
to the life of the scuola' s patron saint, details of Venetian

life are often included, and in some cases, as here, events in
the life of the scuola are depicted.

The relic of the True Cross, the pride of the Scuola di
San Giovanni Evangelista, was carried annually in proces-
sion on the feast day of St. Mark through the Piazza San
Marco. The painting shows the procession of 1444, when
the miraculous healing of the son of a visiting merchant
demonstrated the relic’s power. The brothers of the order,
dressed in white robes, are not those who were there in
1444, but rather portraits of Bellini’s contemporaries, as
are many of the spectators, while the setting documents
contemporary Venetian life and buildings. The basilica of
San Marco and the Doge’s Palace are now much as they
were then, although most of the mosaics of San Marco’s
facade have long since been replaced; thanks to Gentile’s
commitment to capturing Venetian life, we can gain an
idea of their original appearance from his painting.

In 1479-80, Gentile served as court artist for Sultan
Mehmet II of Constantinople. Most of the paintings he did
for the sultan are lost, including, unfortunately, his deco-
rations for the imperial harem in the Topkapi Palace. One
that has survived is his Portrait of Sultan Mehmet II the
Conqueror (fig. 15.33), which, despite its abraded surface,
reveals a combination of Eastern and Renaissance

15.32. GENTILE BELLINI. Procession of the Relic of the True Cross in Piazza San Marco. 1496. Canvas, 12' x 24'5 " (3.67 x 7.45 m).
Accademia, Venice. Commissioned by the Scuola di San Giovanni Evangelista for its confraternity headquarters.

Gentile and his brother Giovanni Bellini were both members of this scuola, and Gentile included his portrait among the brothers of the order
shown here, but he based the representation on a portrait drawn by his brother Giovanni.

GOTHIC AND RENAISSANCE IN VENICE AND NORTHERN ITALY * 4 11

15.33. GENTILE BELLINI. Portrait of Sultan Mebmetll
the Conqueror. 1480. Canvas, 2 7 3 A x 20 5 /s" (69.9 x 52.1 cm).
National Gallery, London.

It was Mehmet who masterminded the three-month siege that led to
the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks on May 29, 1453,
thereby ending the Byzantine Empire. The walls of Constantinople
proved vulnerable to the large guns that Mehmet had commissioned
from a Hungarian gun-founder. This painting was very damaged and
has been heavily restored.

elements. The portrait is treated naturalistically in the
Renaissance tradition, but this effect is muted by the scale
of the surrounding decoration; the enframing arch seems
too small for the figure, while the pattern of the sumptu-
ous Turkish cloth thrown over the sill of the opening is, in
contrast, too large.

Gentile’s life in Constantinople provided material for
many anecdotes. For example, when he showed the sultan
a painting of the severed head of St. John the Baptist, a
subject intended for Christian contemplation, the sultan
considered the picture quite unrealistic. To prove his point
he called up two slaves, one with a sword. “This,” said the
sultan to Gentile, after the headsman had given one expert
blow, “is how a freshly severed head should look!”
Gentile, apparently, soon left for home.

Antonello da Messina

The development of Venetian art at this point is inter-
rupted by the appearance of Antonello da Messina (c.
1430-1479), from the Sicilian city of Messina. Active as
master of his own shop there by 1456, he traveled widely
but always returned to his native city. He arrived in Venice
in 1475, stayed a year and a half, and, it appears, changed
the course of Venetian painting. It seems to have been
Antonello who showed Venetian painters how oil paint could
be used to create subtle atmospheric and luminary effects.

Antonello may have learned to paint in oil from a
Flemish-influenced painter named Colantonio, with whom
he could have been apprenticed in Naples. In 1456 he is
recorded at the court of Galeazzo Maria Sforza in Milan,
where he was paid on the same basis as Petrus Christus, a
pupil of Jan van Eyck. He certainly studied Jan van Eyck’s
paintings in Naples.

The son of a stonecutter, Antonello had a sculptor’s
sense of form, and he may have studied the Archaic or
Severe Style Greek sculpture available in his native Sicily.
Certainly he was able to blend a quintessentially Mediter-
ranean clarity of form with a Netherlandish passion for the
details of visual reality and the definition of form by subtle
transitions of light and shadow. But neither these disparate
influences nor their unexpected combination in a single
artistic personality fully explains Antonello ’s innovative style.

One of Antonello’s earliest pictures, St. Jerome in His
Study (fig. 15.34), is so Netherlandish in style that in 1529
there was a debate over whether it was by Antonello, Hans
Memling, or possibly Jan van Eyck himself. St. Jerome
reads quietly in a fantastic alcove set within a monastic
library. We are admitted to his study through an illusionis-
tic arch similar to those used by the Flemish painter Rogier
van der Weyden, albeit simpler and less Gothic. On the
step, lighted from the window through which we are
looking, are a brass bowl, a peacock, and a partridge. The
same light throws the shadow of the arch on the interior
and competes with the light from the distant windows. St.
Jerome’s desk and shelves are mounted in the brightest
section, just below a clerestory window. In the shadows
behind him, his lion strolls across an elaborate majolica
floor, coming to a stop as if noticing us looking in through
the window. In true Van Eyck tradition, the picture is com-
plete down to the tiniest detail of architecture and still life,
including the Netherlandish motif of a towel hanging on a
nail. The light effects, the atmosphere of the room, and the
landscape visible through the windows all suggest
Antonello’s use of Van Eyck’s techniques of oil painting
and glazes. Like many Netherlandish paintings, this little
picture is a microcosm of its own at the same time that it
reveals the vastness of the outside world.

412

THE QUATTROCENTO

15.54. ANTONELLO DA MESSINA. St. Jerome in His Study. I470s(f). Panel, lSx 14 Vs" [45.7 x 36.2 cm). National Gallery. London.
Small paintings of the scholar saint in his study were popular devotional items for Italian Renaissance humanists.

GOTHIC AND RENAISSANCE IN VENICE AND NORTHERN ITALY • 4 1 3

15.35. ANTONELLO DA MESSINA. Virgin Annunciate.
c. 1465. Panel, 17 3 M x 13 3 /s" (45 x 34 cm). Museo Nazionale,
Palermo.

15.36. ANTONELLO DA MESSINA. Portrait of a Man. c. 1465.
Panel, 14 x 10" (35.6 x 25.4 cm). National Gallery, London.

In his Virgin Annunciate (fig. 15.35), Antonello has rep-
resented not the event of the Annunciation but the half-
length figure of the Annunciate Virgin as a devotional image,
timeless and removed from the traditional narrative. A book,
probably of the prophet Isaiah, is open on a lectern before
her, while her right hand is lifted, as if in surprise, and her
left draws her blue veil over her chest. Light models the
sculptural forms of her face, while shadow plays softly over
her neck. In the manner of Jan van Eyck’s portraits, the
background is black, imparting greater intensity to Mary’s
blue veil and removing the image from any connection
with the surrounding world. The features of her face are
grave and composed. The expression in her brown eyes
suggests that she realizes the meaning of the Incarnation.

Antonello’s Portrait of a Man (fig. 15.36) had an
inscription that is thought to have identified it as a self-
portrait, but this was cut off in the eighteenth century and
may have been merely a signature. Nevertheless, in this
portrait of impressive psychological depth, Antonello
demonstrates how the Northern and the Italian could be
blended. He rivals Netherlandish painters in his observa-
tion of the play of light across the textures of the skin, the

faint stubble of the beard, the luminous eyes, and the dark
hairs that escape from the red cap. These details enhance
but do not distract from the simple three-dimensionality of
form, which can be related to the Italian tradition.

St. Sebastian (fig. 15.37) is almost contemporary with
Pollaiuolo’s altarpiece on the same subject (see fig. 13.7),
but Antonello chose a later moment in the story: the attack
is over and the soldiers have left. One sleeps in the sun, feet
first to the viewer, Mantegna -style, and two more chat
before an arcade in the middle distance. The saint, pierced
by arrows and tied to a tree, looks upward with calm trust.
There is no sign of St. Irene, the woman who will remove
his arrows and nurse him back to health; she became a
standard figure only later, in Baroque representations of
the saint. Antonello’s figure is both commonplace and
ideal. In the reciprocal rhythms of the harmonious stance
and the low viewpoint of the perspective construction, set
just below the knees of the saint, Antonello showed his
understanding of Mantegna’s style: figure and architecture
tower above us as in the St. James Led to Execution (see
fig. 15.17). But the only vestige of Mantegna’s archaeolog-
ical interests is the broken column lying to the right of the

414

THE QUATTROCENTO

saint. Instead of the usual loincloth, the saint wears fif-
teenth-century undershorts, and the buildings are contem-
porary Venetian houses, even to the flaring cylindrical
chimneys. Afternoon sunlight unites the scene — the build-
ings, the people watching from carpet-hung balconies, the
flowers in the window boxes, the Greek priests in the middle
distance, the landscape beyond, the glowing skin of the
nude figure, and the carefully observed clouds in the sky.

15.37. ANTONELLO DA MESSINA. St. Sebastian, c. 1475.
Canvas, transferred from panel, 5 *7^/4 " x 2'9 7 /8 M (171 x 86 cm).
Gemaldegalerie, Dresden. Commissioned for the Scuola dei SS.
Rocco e Nicolo, Venice.

Giovanni Bellini

It was Giovanni Bellini, or in Venetian dialect Giambellino,
who brought Venetian painting to the threshold of the
High Renaissance. His evolution would be incomprehensi-
ble without Antonello, from whom Giovanni must have
learned the new possibilities of oil painting. We know little
about Giovanni’s character, and have no evidence for the
date of his birth except for a document he signed as a
witness in 1459, when he was already living away from his
father and brother. In 1506, when Diirer visited Venice for
a second time, he wrote that Giovanni was very old but
still the best painter in the city. Giovanni’s birth is usually
placed in the 1430s, with some scholars arguing for about
1433, others for about 1435-36 or perhaps even a year or
two later. He is recorded as a painter before 1460, and he
continued painting until his death in 1516. Although the
same poetic temperament can be felt in all Giovanni’s
paintings, the difference in style between the earliest and
latest makes it hard at first to believe they were done by the
same artist (compare fig. 15.38 with fig. 15.1, for example).

Bellini’s early works, most of which are undated, show a
strong affinity with Mantegna’s style in the sculptural
hardness of the masses, the firmness of contour, the crisp-
ness of detail, and the careful construction of the picture.
But Giovanni never presents us with the same consistency,
the same rigor of organization, the same finality as
Mantegna. While Mantegna’s world seems absolute and
unchanging, Giovanni’s works convey emotion and human
experience, and his figures suggest a community of feeling.

A grave, pensive Madonna and Child (fig. 15.38) is
typical of Giovanni’s early half-length Madonnas. Lifting
her hands in prayer, Mary looks sadly down toward the
sleeping Christ, whose slumber is meant to remind the
observer of his death on the cross. Mary’s face is suffused
by light from below — the sea light of Venice, reflected from
canals and palaces, which Giovanni used even for Madon-
nas set in landscapes. In the early works, such landscape
views provide a background of easy roads and gentle
slopes but, as Giovanni’s work develops, the notion that
figures and nature are part of a single continuum becomes
an important part of his expressive vocabulary. Giovanni
was not interested in the enameled brilliance of color seen
in the contemporary works of his brother-in-law
Mantegna. In his early works, he preferred a harmonious
combination of pearly pale flesh tones, soft gray-blues, and
shades of rose, as seen here. Later, with the use of oil, his
color warms and deepens, and the effect of the sea light so
important for Venetian painting is strengthened.

Giovanni’s Agony in the Garden (fig. 15.39) is close to
Mantegna’s version of the same subject (see fig. 15.22) in
date. Both derive from the compositions of Jacopo Bellini,

GOTHIC AND RENAISSANCE IN VENICE AND NORTHERN ITALY * 4 I 5

15.38. GIOVANNI BELLINI. Madonna and Child . c. 1460-65.
Panel, 28 V 2 x I 8 V 4 " (72 x 46 cm). Metropolitan Museum of Art,
New York.

but Giovanni’s seems to reveal his awareness of Man-
tegna’s painting as well. Yet Giovanni ignores the grandeur
of the landscape and the classical reminiscences of Man-
tegna, choosing instead to represent a simple northern
Italian landscape where the Venetian plain meets the hills
near Padua — a hill town on one side, a clustered village on
the other, and in between a badly eroded valley. The rosy
dawn light of Good Friday has started to color the under-
sides of the clouds, as it does in Jacopo Bellini’s Madonna
of Humility with Donor (see fig. 15.11). The color scheme
is dominated not by the reds, yellows, and blues of the gar-
ments, as in Mantegna’s painting, but by the tones of the
still-shadowed earth and the delicate sky; there is an
expressive poetry in Giovanni Bellini’s landscape not found
in Mantegna’s. Giovanni’s Christ lifts his head just above
the horizon as he contemplates a single transparent angel
holding the traditional chalice. Instead of Mantegna’s
Roman platoon, Giovanni’s Judas leads a ragtag band of
sleepy soldiers, and Giovanni is less interested in perspec-
tive projection than in the fitful and exhausted slumber of
the apostles. Giovanni’s sympathy with nature and his
understanding of how landscape and light help to create a
mood are here revealed as important aspects of his style.

Of all Giovanni Bellini’s early works, perhaps the most
moving is the Pieta (fig. 15.40), which is again closely
related to a composition originated by Jacopo Bellini. The
tomb ledge suggests the parapet of Jacopo’s Madonna
compositions, while behind the ledge Mary and John the
Evangelist hold up the dead Christ for meditation. His
head, still crowned with thorns, falls toward that of the

15.39. GIOVANNI
BELLINI. Agony in the
Garden, c. 1465. Panel,
32x50" (81.3x127 cm).
National Gallery, London.

416 *

THE QUATTROCENTO

15.40. GIOVANNI BELLINI. Pieta. c. 1467-70. Panel, 33 1 /* x 42" (84.5 x 106.7 cm). Brera Gallery, Milan.

ashen, worn Mary, who brings her cheek almost to his and
searches the pale face and sunken eyes. Her eyes, and those
of John, are red from weeping, and the inscription at the
bottom reads, “When these swelling eyes evoke groans,
this work of Giovanni Bellini could shed tears.” The
streams of blood that have congealed below the lance
wound and along the left forearm are the warmest tones in
the picture. The cold clear sky complements the subdued
colors of the drapery, and the atmosphere suggests the
biting clarity of a winter day. The colors of the flesh of
Mary and John are a subtle contrast to the greenish tones
of Christ’s gently illuminated body. Both figures and land-
scape seem locked between the twin horizontals of marble
at the bottom and clouds at the top. Never again are Gio-
vanni’s dramas so intense or his appeal to emotion so
explicit. As his style matures, the content of his pictures
becomes warmer and richer, as does his sun-drenched color.

Giovanni’s large Enthroned Madonna and Child with
Saints , known as the San Giobbe altarpiece because it was
commissioned for the Hospital of San Giobbe (fig. 15.41),
is related to both a Madonna Enthroned with Saints
painted by Antonello in 1476 for San Cassiano (known
today only in fragments) and the Madonna and Child with
Saints by Piero (see fig. 11.30). This gathering in heaven is
represented as taking place in a Renaissance pavilion, and
the monumentality of the painting lies not just in its scale,
but in the manner in which the figures relate to Giovanni’s
grandly conceived space. For Bellini here gave the figures
not only reasonable proportions in comparison with the
architecture — Piero had already done that — but also rea-
sonable positions within rather than before the illusionistic
space; this effect is much clearer when the painting is
reunited with its original frame. The standing figures are
less than one-third the height of the barrel vault above them,

GOTHIC AND RENAISSANCE IN VENICE AND NORTHERN ITALY

4 I 7

15.41. GIOVANNI BELLINI. Enthroned Madonna and Child
with Sts. Francis, John the Baptist, Job, Dominic, Sebastian, and
Louis of Toulouse (San Giobbe altarpiece). c. 1478-80. Panel,

15 ’4" x 8'4" (4.7 x 2.5 m). Accademia, Venice. Commissioned
for the chapel in the Hospital of S. Giobbe, Venice; the patron
may have been the Scuola di S. Giobbe. Digitized reconstruction
by Nick Newton.

Christian churches are seldom dedicated to Old Testament figures,
but in Venice Job and Moses each have their own church. This
digitized reconstruction shows the painting in its original frame,
which was probably carved by Pietro Lombardo in consultation with
Bellini. The frame survives in the original location, while the painting
has been moved to a museum.

and even the Virgin’s towering throne does not elevate her
head as high as the mathematical center of the picture,
which is marked by the golden cross that tops her throne.

The illusion that the apse behind the Madonna is deco-
rated with a shimmering Byzantine mosaic is a typical
Venetian reference to the Basilica of San Marco. On
Mary’s left, the figure of St. Sebastian, more idealized and
classical in feeling than Antonello’s representation of the
same saint (see fig. 15.37), is here as protector of the sick.
The old man with a long white beard at Mary’s right is
Job, patron saint of the hospital because of his physical
and mental sufferings. The details show Giovanni’s ability
to represent textures and the sweetness of expression char-
acteristic of his mature pictures. Here he alsckdemonstrates
a new freedom in the use of the brush.

Giovanni’s Enthroned Madonna and Child with Sts.
Peter, Nicholas, Benedict, and Mark (fig. 15.42) shows a
steady increase in the artist’s interest in light. The altar-
piece is still in the position for which it was painted and it
has its original frame, complete with dolphins and winged
tritons, motifs drawn from the sea that are more common
in Venice than elsewhere during the Renaissance. The
union of frame and painted architecture— the capitals
inside the picture are identical with those of the frame —
defines a clear illusion of space that is probably ultimately
derived from Mantegna’s design at San Zeno (see fig.
15.19). In Giovanni’s example the arched triptych format
adds additional complexity.

The use of oil in this altarpiece enabled Giovanni to
develop a continuous atmosphere in which light subtly dis-
solves into shadow. It is almost as if the gilded Renaissance
frame were casting a golden light into Mary’s shrine, to be
given back out in softer keys by the painted gold mosaic of
the apse. The forms themselves are no longer as clearly
defined as in Giovanni’s earlier works; the contours of
faces and figures and the boundaries between figures
subtly merge with the atmosphere. Only the oil medium
and oil glaze can account for this kind of transformation,
which was certainly prompted by Giovanni’s wonder,
recorded by contemporary sources, at Antonello’s work.
With oil paint Giovanni was able to re-create the fluid
fabric of light and atmosphere that surrounds us. In this
new delight in optical beauty, certain qualities of the
artist’s early works have been lost, however: their
poignancy and, at times, somber drama are different from
the world of opulence that Giovanni depicted in his years
of success. His Madonnas now seem untroubled by any
premonition of the Passion.

Giovanni’s pantheistic view of nature is explicit in his St.
Francis in Ecstasy (fig. 15.43). It is not certain exactly
what moment in the saint’s life is represented in this unusu-
ally large narrative painting; it has been argued that this is

418 *

THE QUATTROCENTO

15.42. GIOVANNI BELLINI. Enthroned Madonna and Child with Sts. Peter, Nicholas, Benedict, and Mark (Frari
altarpiece). 1488. Panel: center 6’ Vi" x 2'6 3 /4" (184 x 78 cm); sides each 3'9V4" x 18" (115 x 46 cm). • Sacristy, Sta.
Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, Venice. Commissioned by the sons of Pietro Pesaro and Franceschina Tron in memory of their
mother. The woodworker who made the frame, Jacopo da Faenza, signed it on the back, but the design is almost
certainly by Bellini.

not the stigmatization because we already see the wounds
in the saint’s hands. Whatever the exact moment, what we
see here is an ecstatic figure of St. Francis in a verdant
natural setting. He stands before a cave supplied with a
grape arbor that shades his rough desk, on which only a
book and skull appear. With hands outstretched, he looks
upward toward a burst of golden light in the upper left
corner. A slender sapling seems to bend toward him, and
water flows from a stone spout attached to a little spring
below. Both water and sapling are references to Moses —

the burning bush and the water struck from the rock — in
line with the interest of Francis’s followers in depicting him
as a second Moses. In the distance, beyond a standing
crane and a motionless donkey — the latter an exemplar of
patience and a symbol of solitude, penitence, and
poverty — a shepherd watches over his flock. The rabbit in
a burrow is a reference to a hermit in a cave. The sunlight
seems to pour down on the fertile valley, the hillsides,
the outcroppings of rock, the tranquil city, the
humans, animals, and plants, and, above all, the saint. The

GOTHIC AND RENAISSANCE IN VENICE AND NORTHERN ITALY

4 19

15.43. GIOVANNI BELLINI. St. Francis in Ecstasy, c. 1480. Oil and tempera on panel, 4' 1 " x 4'7 7 /s"
(124.4 x 141.9 cm). The Frick Collection, New York. Commissioned by Zuan Michiel, a prominent
Venetian involved in the city’s government and, like Gentile and Giovanni Bellini, a member of the
Scuola Grande di San Marco.

clear deep blue of the sky helps to explain the crystalline
nature of the detail throughout. Every object is represented
with a Netherlandish fidelity to visual accuracy worthy
of Antonello.

As the Quattrocento ended and the new century began,
Giovanni’s art grew even stronger and more expressive.
Despite his advancing age in a period when the average
male lived to be only forty-four, Giovanni in his seventies
seems to have experienced no slackening of observation or
imagination, no dulling of sensitivity, no loss of skill.

Giovanni’s late altarpieces such as the Enthroned
Madonna with Saints (figs. 15.1, 15.44) offer an impres-
sive unity of composition and monumentality of effect.
This kind of painting impressed Fra Bartolommeo when he
visited Venice in 1507; he emulated it on his return to Flo-
rence and Raphael in turn learned about it from him. At
first sight the general formulation seems almost identical
with that of the San Giobbe altarpiece, but there is a pro-
found difference: the painted architecture is not related to
our position as spectators, nor to our angle of vision. The
viewpoint proposed by the perspective scheme, as in
Leonardo’s Last Supper (see fig. 16.23), is level with the

heads of the saints, nine or ten feet above the floor.
Not one of the seven figures in the painting looks at
another, creating a mood of introspective calm. Each of the
saints, wrapped in a voluminous mantle, is separated
from the next by the enveloping light and atmosphere,
some of which seems to enter from the landscape to either
side. The outlines are almost completely dissolved in light
or shadow, but Giovanni’s control of form remains
absolute. The figures stand out against the creamy marble
and blue-green-gold mosaic of the shrine by the brilliance
of their garments.

For the last eleven years of his life, Giovanni Bellini com-
peted with — and was eventually influenced by — his gifted
pupils and successor: Giorgione, whom he outlived, and
Titian, who was to live almost beyond the chronological
limits of the Renaissance. To complete his innumerable
commissions, Giovanni maintained a large staff of assis-
tants who, following the master’s sketches and directions,
painted many Madonna compositions that bear the Bellini
signature. His followers and imitators popularized the
Bellini manner in Venice and its subject cities, where it
became the dominant style.

420

THE QUATTROCENTO

WUma

15.44. Photograph of fig. 15.1 in situ. This photograph by Thomas Struth provides us with a sense of context for Bellini’s San Zaccaria
altarpiece, which is completely surrounded by oil-on-canvas paintings of various dates. The overall decoration of Venetian church interiors
with oil paintings is similar to the manner in which churches in Tuscany and Rome were filled with frescoes.

Vittore Carpaccio

Vittore Carpaccio (c. 1460/66-1525/26) owes almost
nothing to Giovanni Bellini and only the idea of the
crowded, anecdotal narrative to Gentile. His style is per-
sonal and fanciful, full of witty observation embodied in a
new kind of narrative composition.

Carpaccio was the perfect painter for the scuole , and he
spent most of his artistic career decorating their various

headquarters with canvases of considerable size; we have
little evidence that he received commissions for altarpieces
and Madonnas. Most of his time in the 1490s was spent in
carrying out an extensive cycle for the Scuola di Sant’
Orsola. The legend of Ursula (Orsola in Italian) tells how
Etherius, the pagan son of the king of Britain, sought the
hand of the Christian Ursula, daughter of the king of Brit-
tany. Ursula demanded that Etherius convert to Christian-
ity and that they have a three-year cooling-off period, during

GOTHIC AND RENAISSANCE IN VENICE AND NORTHERN ITALY

4 2 1

15.45. VITTORE CARPACCIO. Departure of the Prince from Britain , His Arrival in Brittany, and Departure of the Betrothed Couple for
Rome, 1495. Canvas, 9'2" x 20' (2.8 x 6.1 m). Accademia, Venice. Cycle commissioned by the Scuola di Sant’Orsola for the confraternity
headquarters, perhaps with the financial assistance of the Loredan family. The St. Ursula cycle was removed from its original setting and is
now displayed in the museum.

which Ursula and her ten maids of honor, each accompa-
nied by a thousand virgins, would make a pilgrimage to
Rome. On their return trip, the 11,011 virgins were waylaid
by the Huns at Cologne and slaughtered.

Carpaccio divided the story into eight large paintings,
one of which shows the departure of the prince from
Britain, his arrival in Brittany, and the departure of the
couple for Rome (fig. 15.45). Although Britain at the left
and Brittany at the right are separated by a flagpole, the
same sunny Venetian sky with big, floating clouds unites
them. For Carpaccio they were merely two sides of the
same ideal harbor, a background for a narrative sequence
that allows a celebration of the naval power and palatial
splendor of imperial Venice. Britain could be any Venetian
port along the Dalmatian coast or in the Aegean islands,
with a castle rising above the fortifications of a seaside city.
Brittany is Carpaccio’s fantasy on Quattrocento Venice,
with marble-clad palaces, domes, towers crowding to the
sea, and ships being repaired in the naval arsenal of Venice
(see fig. 15.56). The verticals of towers, flagpoles, and
masts and the diagonal of the galleon gave him straight
lines with which to unite the diffuse composition.

The narrative moves from left to right. First, the prince
kneels to take leave of his father; next we see him dressed
in brocade meeting his bride; then, prince and princess kneel
before the king of Brittany; finally, to the sound of trum-
pets, the young couple and the first contingent of virgins
move toward the longboat that will take them to waiting

ships. Carpaccio’s colors are generally subdued by an allover
golden tonality so that even the occasional strong reds,
blues, and greens are never obtrusive. His series of paint-
ings for the scuole are united by this atmospheric effect. He
demonstrates a preference for triangular areas — people,
drapery passages, sails, banners, architectural shapes — and
the result is a Venetian web of space and color. The deli-
cately lit faces seldom betray emotion. Many are surely
contemporary portraits; perhaps the artist himself peers at
us from the crowds who throng his docksides and piazzas.

The Arrival of the Ambassadors of Britain at the Court
of Brittany (fig. 15.46) depicts an earlier episode in the
legend. In the center, the ambassadors kneel before the
enthroned monarch. On the right, the king is seated at the
edge of a bed, his crowned head propped on one hand, as
he listens wearily while his daughter ticks off on her fingers
the conditions she intends to impose for the marriage. The
painting offers many delightful details, including the shrewd
portraiture, the wittily drawn distant figures, and the inti-
mate scene in the king’s bedchamber, where what appears
to be an early Madonna by Giovanni Bellini hangs on the
wall. Carpaccio’s golden tonality saturates the marble
slabs and splendid fabrics with the glow of afternoon.

Carpaccio’s poetic style is evident in the Dream of St.
Ursula (fig. 15.47). The saint is sleeping in a high-ceilinged
bedroom when a golden-haired angel enters to bring her
the palm that signals her approaching martyrdom. The
angel is accompanied by a burst of powerful light based on

422

THE QUATTROCENTO

15.46. VITTORE
CARPACCIO.
Arrival of the
Ambassadors of
Britain at the Court
of Brittany.
c. 1495-96.

Canvas, 9' x 19' 4"
(2.74 x 5.89 m).
Accademia, Venice.

15.47. VITTORE
CARPACCIO.
Dream of St. Ursula .
1495. Canvas,

9' x 8'9"

(2.74 x 2.7 m).
Accademia, Venice.

GOTHIC AND RENAISSANCE IN VENICE AND NORTHERN ITALY

4 2 3

Carpaccio’s study of morning sunlight effects. Here it may
represent a flash of divine light accompanying the revela-
tion in the deep of night. Every detail is observed with
almost Antonellesque fidelity, down to the three-legged
stool, the reading table with lectern and portable library
that accompanied the saint on her trip, the wooden clogs
before her bed, and the crown carefully laid on the bench
at its foot. The light effects range from the burst accompa-
nying the angel and the sharp ray running along the ceiling
from the oculus window at the right to the softer effects in
the anteroom and the diffused sparkle of the bottle-bottom
windows. All are unified by the softened red and greenish-
gray tones that predominate. A Madonna and Child paint-
ing or relief hangs on the wall, with a candle in a holder in
front of it and, below, a sprinkler and bucket for holy water
so that the image could be sprinkled before and during
devotions. Some day perhaps iconographers will discover
why over one door there is a beautifully painted nude
statue of a water carrier and over the other a provocative
Venus on her shell. Neither seems to have much to do with
the chaste saint sleeping so peacefully in her bed.

Probably in the late 1490s Carpaccio painted his Medi-
tation on the Passion (fig. 15.48). The body of the dead
Christ is displayed on a ruined throne between two
bearded hermit-saints. St. Jerome, on the left, is identified
by his lion in the background; his companion is Job, an
identification based in part on his similarity to the figure in
Bellini’s San Giobbe altarpiece. Reminders of death appear

everywhere: a skull rests on the ground under Job’s knees,
the top of Jerome’s staff is carved with a hand clutching a
bone, and his rosary is a threaded set of vertebrae. Yet the
dead Christ almost seems to be dreaming in the warm
afternoon sunlight. St. Jerome wrote a commentary on the
Book of Job in which he interpreted Job’s words, “I know
that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the
latter day upon the earth” (19:25), as a prophecy of
Christ’s Resurrection. In the preceding verse Job had asked
that his words be “graven with an iron pen and lead in the
rock,” and this is just what Carpaccio has done. Among
the generally meaningless tracks on the block on which Job
sits can be read, “My redeemer liveth. 19,” a clear refer-
ence to the passage just cited.

The landscape is doubtless symbolic. As in Piero della
Francesca’s Resurrection (see fig. 11.20), it is sharply
divided. To the left, dominated by a withered tree, is a
wild and rocky mountainside where a doe grazes, oblivious
to the fate that has befallen her mate, attacked by a
leopard. On the right, before a rich landscape of farms,
orchards, castles, a peaceful town, and green trees, another
stag runs from a pursuing leopard. The stag, symbolizing
the human soul (Psalm 42: “As the hart desireth the water
brooks, so longeth my soul after thee, O God”), is torn
by the leopard on one side and escapes on the other,
just as Job, once tormented, was later blessed by God.
A bird, symbolizing the Resurrection, flies up from behind
Christ’s throne. This unusual picture must have been

15.48. VITTORE CARPACCIO.
Meditation on the Passion. Late 1490s.
Panel, 27 3 /t x 34V 8 " (70.5 x 86.7 cm).
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

424

THE QUATTROCENTO

made for a patron who outlined for the painter his or her
specific needs for private devotion.

Carpaccio never surpassed the glowing landscape and
the pearly clouds of this painting, nor did he equal the per-
sonal religious poetry that makes it so intriguing. His late
work has been interpreted by some as a decline and, after
1510, he obtained his commissions only from more remote
places like the fishing town of Chioggia or the provincial
centers of Istria and the Dalmatian coast.

Carlo Crivelli

Carlo Crivelli (c. 1435-c. 1495) is even harder to place
than Carpaccio. Although a Venetian by birth, he spent
almost all his active life far from Venetian territory. He
might logically be considered a central Italian painter if it
were not for the fact that his early style was formed by the
Paduan school. Our first information about him is a court
judgment against him in 1457 for having “kept hidden for
many months” the wife of an absent sailor, “knowing her
carnally in contempt of God and of Holy Matrimony.” He
was sentenced to six months in prison and a heavy fine,
and is presumed to have left Venice soon after his release.
Still signing himself proudly “Carolus Crivellus Venetus,”
he spent the rest of his life in the Marches, where his sharply
individual style had considerable influence on local artists.

Although Crivelli’s known activity spans about thirty
years, his style developed little. He left Venice before the
flowering of Giovanni Bellini’s atmospheric art, taking
with him his own linear version of the Paduan manner.
Hair, veins, and muscles are carefully outlined, and forms
are sharply projected. Sometimes the drops of Christ’s
blood, the tears of mourners, or the attributes of saints are
modeled in low relief in gesso so they stand out from the
painting’s surface. In 1492 he was still using a gold
background, although it is possible that this may have
been required or expected by his provincial patrons. His
color is often stony or metallic, yet the effect of a Crivelli
painting is not hard. The stone he paints is colored marble
containing rich fluctuations of tone, with additions of
gold, silver, or both. The result is something like a tapestry
with gold threads — sumptuous, russet, deeply glowing but
subdued. This is Crivelli’s own version of the Venetian
web (see p. 150).

A typical work, the Pieta (fig. 15.49), reveals the inten-
sity of Crivelli’s rendering of the scenes of the Passion.
Before a gold background and a cloth-of-honor made by
tooling the gold surface, lamenting angels hold up the dead
Christ. Christ’s head is thrown back, his mouth hangs
open. A gigantic spear wound yawns in his side, and one
huge nail wound in his left hand is shown in profile so that
its depth may be assessed. The taut veins, tendons, and

15.49. CARLO CRIVELLI. Pieta . c. 1470. Panel, 28 x I8V4"

(71 x 47 cm). John G. Johnson Collection, Philadelphia Museum of
Art. Probably this panel was part of a polyptych with other, still-
unidentified panels.

wrinkles are projected by Crivelli’s sharp surface hatching
to an almost unbearable degree, given the subject of the
painting. Yet his sense of pattern is so strong and his
golden tonality so insistent that there is no sense of dis-
unity between the painted forms and the effect of relief.

In his later works, Crivelli achieved an even greater
harmony of form, color, and surface. In the Madonna della
Candeletta (fig. 15.50), he signed himself as “eques”
(“knight”), a slight inflation of the rank of “miles”
(“soldier”) conferred upon him in 1490 by Prince Ferdi-
nand of Capua, later King Ferdinand of Naples. The
picture’s title derives from the thin candle that burns at the
lower left. The crowned Virgin sits upon a veined marble
throne, its bench, pedestal, and base seeming to continue
out of the frame at either side. The garlands of fruit and
leaves, which Crivelli had incorporated as part of his stan-
dard repertory from Padua and Venice, are here gathered

GOTHIC AND RENAISSANCE IN VENICE AND NORTHERN ITALY

425

15.50. CARLO CRIVELLI. Madonna della Candeletta. Early
1490s. Panel, 7 '2" x 29 1 fi n (218 x 75 cm). Brera Gallery, Milan.

to form a little bower. Not even the dark blue and gold
velvet brocade of Mary’s mantle or the red and gold of her
sleeves can compete with the magnificence of the apples,
cucumbers, and pears. These great, rounded shapes, with
their metallic colors and rippling leaves, give the picture a
kind of magical intensity. Even Mary’s face, with its down-
cast eyes and solemn frontality, is likened in shape to the
apples and pears and shines as softly as they do. Again,
Crivelli projects his forms sharply and lets the light cast
shadows on the painted marble; the effect is that of a pre-
cious Renaissance textile. Crivelli’s was a strongly personal
style of refinement and brilliance, hermetically sealed from
the developments of his Venetian contemporaries, from
whom the artist exiled himself. Yet his work was certainly
one of the major achievements of northern Italian art of
the Quattrocento.

Venetian Fabrics

The opulent cloth we have seen in Quattrocento Venetian
paintings reflects the local cloth industry, which was one of
the great successes of Venetian commercialism. Elere we
illustrate an example of the sumptuous silk cut-velvet
fabric for which Italy, and Venice in particular, became
famous (fig. 15.51). The pomegranate pattern seen here
was introduced from Islamic art around 1425 and became
wildly popular. Red was the most expensive dye because it
was produced from pregnant kermes beetles, and the addi-
tion of metallic thread further increased the cost. Such fabrics
were used for fashionable dresses and also for bed hangings.

While few examples of actual fabric of this era survive
in good condition, the representation of fabrics in Italian
and Northern paintings testifies to their popularity; note,
for example, the small piece of fabric hanging from the tie
bar behind the Virgin’s throne in Giovanni Bellini’s
San Zaccaria altarpiece (fig. 15.1). The sumptuous nature
of Venetian life and art can be related to these luxury
fabrics, which frequently appear in Venetian and north
Italian paintings of the sixteenth century (see figs. 19.9,
19.32, 19.53).

Venetian Publishing

We have already studied a beautiful illuminated manu-
script, the copy of Dante’s Divine Comedy made for
Federico da Montefeltro (see fig. 14.33), produced about
1477-82. The page from the works of Aristotle illustrated
here (fig. 15.52) was produced in Venice in 1483 and may

426

THE QUATTROCENTO

15.51. ITALIAN (FLORENCE or VENICE?). Velvet textile
(portion). 1470-1530. Velvet cloth-of-gold, with loops of silver-gilt
thread, 9'9 5 /i 6" x 23 9 /i6" (298 x 60 cm). Victoria and Albert
Museum, London (81-1892).

at first seem similar. There is, however, one important dif-
ference: in this case the text is not hand-lettered but printed
on a printing press. Printing quickly became an important
industry in Venice during the later Quattrocento, but
luxury books such as this one could still be decorated with
hand-painted illustrations. The book includes both Aristo-
tle’s works and the commentary on them written by the
great Islamic scholar Averroes in the twelfth century. Both
works had been newly translated into Latin by Nicoletto
Vernia, a professor at the nearby University of Padua.

The painting, by Girolamo da Cremona (active
1460-1483) and his workshop assistants, is a masterful
trompe Voeil illusion. Pearls, gold decoration, and ancient
cameo portraits seem to be hanging on red silk threads in
front of the printed page, which is decorated with a
bearded figure in the initial. The page, however, seems to

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15.52. GIROLAMO DA CREMONA and assistants. Aristotle
Lecturing Averroes , from Aristotle , Works , with Commentary of
Averroes and Isagoge of Porphyry (Venice: Andreas Torresanus and
Bartholomeus de Blavis, 1483). Printed book on parchment with
hand-painted decoration in tempera and gold, 16 Vs x IOV 4 "

(40.9 x 27.2 cm). The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York.
Commissioned by Peter Ugelheimer, a banker and book collector,
who is recognized in the inscription that runs along the bottom
of the architectural tabernacle: “Peter Ugelheimer has brought
[this] Aristotle forth to the world.”

be torn on the sides to reveal a scene of Aristotle with
Averroes (who wears a turban to identify him as a Muslim)
and a landscape with an architectural tabernacle and satyrs
and puttu To turn the page and find this tour-de-force must
have delighted Quattrocento viewers. The painter appears
to have wittily ripped away the printed page to suggest
that naturalistic scenes lie behind it. Girolamo da
Cremona, who was probably trained by Mantegna,
worked in Ferrara, Mantua, Padua, Siena, and Florence
before returning to Venice in 1474/75.

♦

GOTHIC AND RENAISSANCE IN VENICE AND NORTHERN ITALY

427

Late Quattrocento Sculpture and
Architecture in Venice

As elsewhere in Italy, public buildings and churches in
Venice were decorated with large figural sculpture. The
figures of Adam and Eve by Antonio Rizzo (active after
1465, d. 1499/1500) for the courtyard of the Doge’s Palace
reveal different approaches to the representation of the
male and female nude (figs. 15.53-15.54). Eve still follows
the late medieval tradition of narrow shoulders, small
breasts, and broad hips, and her demeanor is appropriately
modest; she looks down shyly and moves to cover her gen-
itals and breasts — a pose based on the Venus pudica type
known from antiquity, which also influenced Botticelli’s
Birth of Venus (see fig. 13.24). Adam, on the other hand, is
a vigorous and muscular figure based on both ancient
heroic types and a living model. And while Eve seems to
look inward, Adam turns his head upward and his mouth
is wide open. Both his expression and his stance reveal that
he has been caught in a moment of activity, but Rizzo’s exact
expressive intent is not clear. The distinction between
Rizzo’s representation of male and female in these figures is
one of many indications of the different roles presumed to
be appropriate for men and women during the Renaissance.

Quattrocento Venetian tombs are especially impressive.
As an example, we turn to a work made by a family of
builders, stonecarvers, and sculptors from Lombardy and
hence named Lombardo. They included Pietro (c.
1435-1515) and his sons Antonio (c. 1458-1516) and
Tullio (c. 1455-1532); they were active in Venice in the last
quarter of the Quattrocento. The monumental tomb of
Doge Pietro Mocenigo, who died in 1476 after serving
only one year as doge, was made by Pietro in collaboration
with his young sons and their workshop assistants (fig.
15.55). The Risen Christ surmounts the arch at the top,
but Doge Mocenigo, posing vigorously atop his own
sarcophagus, seems larger and — in part because he is closer
to the viewer — more important. The exquisitely carved
decorative motifs are all drawn from antiquity, and the
lowest level even includes reliefs representing two of
the Labors of Hercules, probably as a reference to the
heroic stature of Doge Mocenigo. His military exploits on
behalf of Venice are celebrated in two scenes on the
sarcophagus, while reliefs of war booty flank the long
laudatory inscription. The simple phrase on the sarcopha-
gus itself— EX HOSTIUM MANUBIIS ("From Spoils
Taken from the Enemy”) — reveals that the tomb was
financed with military spoils. This is only one of a number
of multilevel tombs with life-sized figures made for
the doges. Such monuments, which are in sharp contrast
the smaller, simpler tombs made in Florence for the repub-

15.53. ANTONIO RIZZO. Adam . c. 1480? Marble, 6’9”

(2.06 m). This figure and its pendant Eve were originally placed
on the Arco Foscari in the Doge’s Palace courtyard. Palazzo Ducale,
Venice. The dates of Rizzo’s Adam and Eve are uncertain, with
scholars arguing for dates from c. 1470 to the 1490s.

lie’s chancellors (see figs. 10.27, 12.10), expose Venice’s
imperial pretensions.

In the course of its thousand-year history, Venice had
produced few architects of importance. Most of the
builders who worked there came from other regions, but
once in the city, they fell heir to both the splendors of the
Byzantine tradition — inevitable, with the basilica of San

4 Z 8

THE QUATTROCENTO

15.54. ANTONIO RIZZO. Eve . c. 1480? Marble, 6' 8V2" (2.04 m).
The figure is signed on the base: ANTONIO RIZO.

Marco in their midst — and the rich linear complexities of
the Flamboyant Gothic style brought from France and
Germany. The same combination is found in the architec-
ture that forms the settings for Carpaccio’s scenes (see figs.
15.45-15.46): the Byzantine and Gothic blend, clothed
with the same rich marble paneling and highlighted by the
same Venetian sunlight. Only here and there are Carpac-
cio’s hybrid buildings punctuated by windows or pilasters
borrowed from the Florentine Renaissance. These painted
structures reflect the first timid appearance of the Renais-

15.55. PIETRO, ANTONIO, and TULLIO LOMBARDO.

Tomb of Doge Pietro Mocenigo. 1476-81. Istrian stone, height
of the central figure 5'7" (169 cm). SS. Giovanni e Paolo, Venice.
Commissioned by the doge’s heirs, Niccolo and Giovanni Mocenigo.
The contract stated that the tomb would be the joint work of Pietro
and his two sons, but critics have pointed out that certain elements
were executed by assistants. The tomb originally featured seventeen
figures, but two have been removed and placed elsewhere in the church.

sance in Venetian architecture, which occurred almost
exclusively in structures built by Lombardians.

During the last third of the Quattrocento in Venice,
members of the Lombardo family competed for dominance

GOTHIC AND RENAISSANCE IN VENICE AND NORTHERN ITALY * 429

with Mauro Codussi (c. 1440-1504), another Lombard,
from Bergamo. Codussi was in closer touch with the ideas
of the central Italian Renaissance than were the Lombardo
family, and by the end of the century he had led the way to
a truly Venetian Renaissance style in architecture.

A key civic monument, the gateway into Venice’s great
shipyard, the Arsenale (fig. 15.56), is an early demonstra-
tion of the influence of antiquity in Venetian architecture.
This grand portal, topped with an enormous representa-
tion of the lion of the Venetian Republic, expresses the
city’s importance as a maritime power. The arched
entrance, flanked by columns on high bases, is a reference
to ancient Roman triumphal arches, as is appropriate for a
building intended to embody the military and economic
power of the Venetian state.

Another Venetian landmark, the towering facade of San
Zaccaria, was largely the creation of Codussi (fig. 15.57).
The interior of the church was Gothic in design, and the
pre-existing lowest story of the facade by Antonio Gambello,
essentially a pedestal with rectangular paneling, some of it
protruding as buttresses, established a complexity from which
Codussi could hardly vary. On this he superimposed stories
in the new classical style, exploiting by their projections
and recessions the play of light so important in Venetian
paintings of the period. He continued the buttresses upward,
using them to divide the second-story arcade into three seg-
ments, and on the third and fifth stories the buttresses are
articulated by paired, free-standing Corinthian columns.
The proliferation of windows of differing sizes and pro-
portions, the lack of alignment between the second and third

15.56. ANTONIO GAMBELLO (attributed to). Arsenale Gateway. 1457/8-1460. Brick and Istrian stone; the four unfluted columns are
reused materials from an earlier structure, as are the marble capitals. Commissioned by Doge Pasquale Malipiero and the Avogadori di Comun
(Leone Molin, Albano Capello, and Marc’Antonio Contarini).

The Venetian shipyard was perhaps the largest industrial complex in Europe at this time, employing several thousand men in a system that has
been compared to the modern production line. The gateway has been enriched with later additions, including the female saint at the peak of the
pediment, the bronze doors, the enclosed terrace in front with its statuary, and the lions to either side.

4 3 0

THE QUATTROCENTO

floors, and the stumpy proportions of the Corinthian
colonnade on the fifth floor offer a lively variety alien to
the Albertian tradition. Yet it is from Alberti’s idea for the
Malatesta Temple (see fig. 10.3) that Codussi derived the
arched pediment at the top and the quarter-circles that mask
the roof line on either side. In its complexity and manipu-
lation of light Codussi’s solution is profoundly Venetian
and yet at the same time it asserts that classicizing columns
and entablatures are the proper architectural vocabulary.
After passing through Codussi’s Renaissance resolution, it
is a surprise to enter the Gothic interior. Finding Giovanni
Bellini’s late altarpiece there (see fig. 15.44), however,
returns us to the world of Renaissance classicism.

The unique style of Venetian architecture is also evident
in the design of the facade of the Scuola Grande di San

Marco (fig. 15.58), where the lions of St. Mark and, there-
fore, of Venice, seem to be emerging from trompe I’oeil
chambers that flank the entrance. The facade was begun by
Pietro and Tullio Lombardo in the late 1480s and com-
pleted by Mauro Codussi in the 1490s. While the architec-
tural motifs here are almost exclusively drawn from
ancient models, the effect is profoundly Venetian and
unlike works of architecture produced anywhere else on
the peninsula. The repetition of round arches on different
levels and in different sizes is ultimately a homage to the
domes of San Marco, while the decoration along the roofline
seems designed to draw attention upward, toward the
beautiful sky and clouds that so often hover over the city.

The Renaissance facade that Codussi designed and built
for the Grand Canal palazzo of the powerful Loredan

15.57. MAURO CODUSSI and ANTONIO GAMBELLO.
Facade, S. Zaccaria, Venice. Second half of fifteenth century.
Gambello designed only the lowest story, with its reliefs of bust-
length figures and inlaid pink panels; the upper part by Codussi is
completely executed in white marble. The later marble figure over
the main door, which represents Zaccharias, father of St. John the
Baptist, is by Alessandro Vittoria (see p. 647).

iivir f

•Fin

15.58. PIETRO LOMBARDO, TULLIO LOMBARDO,
and MAURO CODUSSI. Facade, Scuola Grande di San Marco.
1485-90s. White marble with inlays in verde antico (green marble)
and porphyry, a rare red stone quarried in Egypt; details of the
pilasters and capitals were originally gilded.

GOTHIC AND RENAISSANCE IN VENICE AND NORTHERN ITALY • 431

family (fig. 15.59) should be compared to the Gothic Ca
d’Oro (see fig. 15.8). The culminating example of the
Venetian Quattrocento palace and the bridge to the High
Renaissance in Venice, Palazzo Loredan offers balance and
harmony. Unlike the Ca d’Oro, or the facades of San Zac-
caria and the Scuola Gronde di San Marco, here a single
window pattern appears on all three floors and the overall
design is strictly symmetrical. The work was completed
after Codussi’s death by the Lombardo family but the
design is Codussi’s, and in the relationship between
columns and windows he achieved a balance and maturity
of proportion that had eluded him at San Zaccaria. He
derived the double-light windows from the Florentine
Renaissance (see fig. 6.23), but here they are enlarged and

joined to Corinthian columns so that the wall — always so
prominent in Florentine palace design — becomes a back-
drop. Even the tympanum above the paired windows is
pierced by an open oculus, an echo of the lingering tradi-
tion of Gothic tracery. The facade seems to consist of a
framework around openings, a succession of clusters of
columns and colonnettes, with brief intervening spaces of
veined marble enlivened by sculpted ornament and por-
phyry disks. The stories are separated by balconies and
rich entablatures, and the whole is crowned by an impres-
sive cornice. The pictorial effects of this Venetian palazzo
are in strong contrast to the roughly contemporary Palazzo
Strozzi in Florence (see fig. 12.17), where the emphasis is
on the forbidding density of the masonry, yet in harmony

15.59. MAURO CODUSSI;
completed by the LOMBARDO
family. Facade, Palazzo Loredan
(now Palazzo Vendramin-Calergi),
Venice. Begun c. 1500; completed
1509. Marble, with some colored
inlay, including porphyry disks.
Commissioned by the Loredan
family.

4 3 2.

THE QUATTROCENTO

and balance, they are surprisingly similar. Like the other
palace facades along the Grand Canal, the Palazzo
Loredan enjoys the advantage of being reflected in the
water, from which glittering light reflects back to soften the
building’s shadows and dematerialize its forms.

Late Quattrocento Art in Milan

Francesco I, founder of the Sforza dynasty in Milan, was a
successful general who married the illegitimate daughter of
Filippo Maria Visconti. Three years after her death
without male issue in 1447, Francesco abolished the
revived Milanese Republic and assumed the hereditary
dukedom. His son, Galeazzo Maria, duke from 1466 to

15.60. VINCENZO FOPPA. Crucifixion . 1456. Panel, 26 3 /4 x 15"
(68 x 38 cm). Galleria dell’Accademia Carrara, Bergamo.

1476, was tyrannical and cruel — and an insatiable patron
of the arts. After his murder in 1476, when he left a son
too young to govern, the reins of government were taken
over by his brother, Ludovico il Moro, who was declared
duke in 1494. Ludovico became one of the most enlight-
ened of Renaissance rulers and patrons of art, but unfor-
tunately the magnificent structures he built are now largely
transformed or destroyed and his art collections almost
entirely dispersed. His expulsion from the dukedom by the
French in 1499 and his death in a French prison marked
the end of a brilliant era.

Vincenzo Foppa

Perhaps the most original Lombard painter of the Quat-
trocento was Vincenzo Foppa (c. 1428-1515) from
Brescia, east of Milan. The relationship of his earliest
dated work, the Crucifixion of 1456 (fig. 15.60), to Quat-
trocento art elsewhere is clear. The embracing arch and
imperial profile portraits in the spandrels, for example,
show his adaptation of classicized architecture and motifs.
The pose of the bad thief and the treatment of the back-
ground landscape betray a knowledge of Jacopo Bellini
(see fig. 15.11), and the influence of the predella of Man-
tegna’s San Zeno altarpiece (see fig. 15.21) is perhaps
evident. The muscular vigor of the bodies and the violence
of the expressions and poses, however, are typical of
Foppa’s style, the expressive impact of the scene evolving
from the manner in which he contrasts the suffering of the
two thieves with the calm serenity of the figure of Christ.
The painting demonstrates how quickly Renaissance inno-
vations infiltrated Lombardy, and how profoundly an
artist outside the centers of Renaissance development
could adapt its possibilities to his own expressive needs.

Filarete

Antonio Averlino (c. 1400-after 1465) was a Florentine
sculptor and architect who adopted the name Filarete (from
the Greek, “love of virtue”). In 1445 his set of bronze and
silver doors commissioned by Pope Eugenius IV was installed
at Old St. Peter’s; they are in use today on the current struc-
ture. Filarete left Rome and sought employment in Milan
where, in the early 1450s, he began working for Francesco
Sforza. His ideas, founded on those of Alberti, came into
conflict with the conservatism of local Gothic builders, a
fact that doomed most of his projects from the start.

Filarete’s treatise on architecture lays out many ambi-
tious Renaissance schemes. The only major project under-
taken from the treatise was the Ospedale Maggiore (Main
Hospital) for Milan, the practical and theoretical aspects
of which Filarete described in detail. In spite of later

GOTHIC AND RENAISSANCE IN VENICE AND NORTHERN ITALY *

43 3

15.61. ANTONIO FILARETE. Plan of Sforzinda. c. 1457-64.
Biblioteca Nazionale, Florence. Commissioned by Francesco Sforza.
Filarete presented his treatise on architecture and city planning, in
which this plan was illustrated and described, to both Piero de’
Medici in Florence and Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza of Milan.
Where Filarete expected that Sforzinda would be built is unknown.

alterations and damage from aerial bombardments, the
building still exists. Filarete also proposed a new island
city, named Sforzinda after the ruling family of Milan (fig.
15.61). The exterior walls were to be shaped like an eight-
pointed star, with the palace of the prince and a nucleus of
public buildings in the center, in true Albertian style. Such
a centralized city was not finally carried out until the close
of the sixteenth century in the plan for Livorno, designed
by Bernardo Buontalenti for Grand Duke Ferdinand I de’
Medici, and that for Amsterdam. Nevertheless, the imprint
of Filarete’s ideas is evident in projects commissioned by
Ludovico il Moro, including the villa, castle, farms, and
central square of Vigevano, built by Bramante, and a
system of canals — some still in use — in Milan.

Quattrocento Painting in Ferrara

We cannot leave the northern Italian Quattrocento
without discussing the school of painting that flourished at
Ferrara, a Renaissance center in the lowlands south of the
Po River. In the thirteenth century the city and surround-
ing area came under the control of the Este family, who
became dukes of Ferrara and ruled there until 1598.
During this period of prosperity, the Este dukes, especially

Niccolo III (1384-1441) and Lionello (1404-1450), com-
missioned works from important foreign artists, including
Antonio Pisanello, Jacopo Bellini, Leonbattista Alberti,
Piero della Francesca, Andrea Mantegna, and the Fleming
Rogier van der Weyden. The local school that began to
emerge about 1450 was influenced by these visitors from
abroad, but the Ferrarese artists seem to have been deter-
mined to be independent, and a distinctive Ferrarese style
soon developed.

The oldest of three important Ferrarese painters was
Cosme Tura (c. 1430-1495), who developed a personal-
ized variant on the Early Renaissance style. The central
panel of his Roverella altarpiece, a towering Enthroned
Madonna and Child with Angels (fig. 15.62), is startling in
its combination of sculptural intensity and unexpected
color combinations. The Renaissance architectural ele-
ments, for example, alternate between green and pink,
while the shell above the Virgin’s throne is surprisingly
fluid in design. At the top of the throne, statues of the
symbols of the four Evangelists join winged putti and cor-
nucopias from which dangle bunches of grapes. The capi-
tals to the sides are original inventions; incised lines on the
surface of the panel reveal that Tura used the same cartoon,
reversed, to create these decorations. On the steps of this

4 3 4

THE QUATTROCENTO

15.62. COSME TURA. Enthroned Madonna and Child
with Angels , from the Roverella altarpiece. c. 1475-76.
Panel, 7'10" x 3’4" (2.39 x 1 m). National Gallery,
London. Commissioned by members of the Roverella
family, perhaps Niccolo and Filiasio, for their family
chapel in S. Giorgio Fuori le Mura, Ferrara.

The media used by Tura for this altarpiece included a
sophisticated application of oil over an egg tempera
underpainting. The dismembered altarpiece (see fig. 15.63)
was partially destroyed by mortar fire in 1709. Originally
it was more than 13 feet high and had a predella with
round paintings depicting scenes from the life of Christ.
The only surviving side panel features a portrait that has
been identified as Cardinal Bartolommeo Roverella being
introduced to the Virgin by Saints Paul and Maurelius.

The inscription on the organ in the foreground is
damaged, but a chronicler writing after 1709 related it to
a couplet that reads: “Arise boy [Christ], the Roverella
family are knocking outside. Let entry be given them.

The Law says ‘knock, you shall be admitted.’” An early
description states that a figure in the lost left panel was
shown knocking; perhaps this was Lorenzo Roverella,
who died in 1474 and is buried at San Giorgio in a tomb
dated 1476.

GOTHIC AND RENAISSANCE IN VENICE AND NORTHERN ITALY

43 5

fantastic structure angels play viols and strum lutes. Below,
an angel plays an organ while another works its bellows.
The crowded space is characteristic of Tura’s work, as are
the contorted, strangely mesmerizing shapes. Instead of
pilasters at the sides, the throne has the tablets of the Ten
Commandments in abbreviated Hebrew. This inclusion is
an unusual touch, and a recent analysis of the painting
proposes that the full meaning of the Roverella altarpiece
is best understood in the context of certain conflicts
between Jews and Christians in late Quattrocento Italy.

Northern Italian painters and sculptors were often unre-
strained in expressing grief, as in Tura’s large Pieta from
the summit of this same altarpiece (fig. 15.63). We look
upward into a barrel vault that repeats the one seen in the
panel below. The body of the dead Christ is spread across
the Virgin’s knees, his arms held out by lamenting figures.
The emotional impact of this crowded grouping is
inescapable. The parallel between the image of the sleeping
baby Jesus below and the dead Christ, again on his
mother’s lap above, gives added meaning to each scene.

Tura was appointed court artist for the Este family in
1458, and in that capacity he produced secular decora-

tions. In 1481, for example, it is documented that he
painted four “naked women” to decorate the studio
(study) of Duke Ercole d’Este. In 1490 Tura wrote a letter
to his patron that reveals some of the difficulties of being
an artist in Quattrocento Italy, complaining that he has not
been paid for certain works and asking the duke to inter-
vene on his behalf:

Truly, Illustrious Prince and my Most Excellent Lord, my
industry does not support me. I do not know how I shall be
able to live and survive in this manner since I do not have the
occupation or resources to sustain myself along with my
household, apart from what I have earned from my daily
labor and skill in painting. I find myself gravely ill with a
sickness from which I cannot recover without considerable
time and expense, as perhaps Your Excellency knows. I tell
you this having six years ago made an altarpiece at my own
expense in gold, colors, and painting for Francesco Nasello,
secretary to Your Excellency, . . . and from which sixty ducats
is owing to me; and having similarly painted a Saint Anthony
of Padua and certain other things for the most Reverend and
Illustrious Monsignor of Adria, for which remains a debt to

15.63. COSME TURA. Pieta , from summit of the Roverella altarpiece (see fig. 15.62). c. 1475-76. Panel, 4'4" x 8'9" (1.3 x 2.7 m).
The Louvre, Paris.

436 .

THE QUATTROCENTO

me of twenty-five ducats. I cannot receive satisfaction, which
is certainly neither honest nor fair, all the more so because
they are powerful and very well have the means to settle and
I am poor and helpless and cannot afford to lose the reward
of my labor. For this reason I ... implore you, as that one
who has graciously deigned to give me satisfaction for the
works I did for him, to deign in whatever honorable and
appropriate way you see fit to have the aforementioned
instructed to give me full satisfaction without more words
and delays.... Ferrara, 9 January 1490.

Your excellency’s most faithful servant,
Cosmus Pictor [Cosme the Painter]

A second leading Ferrarese painter was Francesco del
Cossa (c. 1435-c. 1477), son of a stonemason. His style is
exemplified in his John the Baptist (fig. 15.64) from the
Griffoni altarpiece. In his paintings Cossa shows a special
interest in rocky landscapes and in the stones, carved and
otherwise, of which architecture is built, and an affinity
between naturally formed rocks and stone structures is
evident here in the landscape of rocky pinnacles, open
arcades, and natural bridges supporting turreted castles
and domed churches stacked in impossible positions. A
cloudless blue sky and brilliant light expose this stony
world and all the objects in it, whether carved by nature or
human fantasy, with relentless clarity. Cossa’s magical
intensity seeps into every detail — from the rosaries hanging
from rings around a pole to the crumpled scroll bearing
John’s words, “Behold, a voice crying in the wilderness,”
and the patterns of the saint’s voluminous drapery —
explaining why his bizarre paintings served as models for
certain Surrealists during the 1930s.

The most remarkable surviving project of the Ferrarese
artists is the fresco cycle lining the Sala dei Mesi (Hall of
the Months), the main hall in the Palazzo Schifanoia at
Ferrara, a hunting lodge enlarged by Duke Borso d’Este

15.64. FRANCESCO DEL COSSA .John the Baptist, from the
Griffoni altarpiece. 1473. Panel, 44Vs x 21 5 /s" (112.1 x 54.9 cm).
Brera Gallery, Milan. Commissioned by Floriano Griffoni for
S. Petronio, Bologna.

GOTHIC AND RENAISSANCE IN VENICE AND NORTHERN ITALY * 437

Left: 15.65. FRANCESCO DEL COSSA, ERCOLE DE’
ROBERTI, COSME TURA, and others. The Months, from left
to right, September, August, July, June, May, April, and March.
Late 1460s-early 1470s. Fresco, size of room approx. 40' x 80'
(12 x 24 m), width of each month approx. 13' (4 m). Hall of the
Months, Palazzo Schifanoia, Ferrara. Commissioned by Duke
Borso d’Este. The name Borso gave to this pleasure palace means
“away with boredom.”

beginning around 1465 (figs. 15.65-15.66). The frescoes
are related to the calendar illustrations that appear fre-
quently in Northern European manuscripts, but here there
is a special emphasis, as we might expect, on Borso d’Este
as a wise ruler. The program, devised by a still-unidentified
humanist, is complex. Each month is represented in the top
register by the triumphal cart of the ancient deity who
presided over that month, with the signs of the related
zodiac in the middle zone and the courtly activities and
practical labors appropriate for that month at the bottom.
Portraits of Borso and his courtiers appear in various
scenes on the lower level. The frescoes demonstrate the
brilliance of Ferrarese coloring and the inventiveness of the
local painters in their interpretation of subject matter. The
leading master was apparently Cossa, with limited partici-
pation by Ercole de’ Roberti and other, anonymous artists.

In Cossa’s April (fig. 15.66), Venus rules from a kind of
barge drawn by swans. On either bank, elegantly dressed
ladies and gentlemen indulge in amorous courtship that is
parodied by white rabbits. Presiding over the couples are
the Three Graces at the upper right; like Botticelli’s Graces
in the Primavera (see fig. 13.23), their composition reveals
that an ancient source, written or visual, was the model
(see pp. 338-39). Like the other frescoes, this scene resem-
bles a continuous tapestry replete with fascinating details
and an occasional extension into illusionistic depth.

Ercole de’ Roberti (1456-1496) is the youngest of the
three painters of Quattrocento Ferrara discussed here. His
emaciated and mystical St. John the Baptist (fig. 15.67)
rises above rocks that are similar to those of Tura and
Cossa, but their scale and substance are reduced. The ledge
on which John stands seems to melt away as we watch,

Left: 15.66. FRANCESCO DEL COSSA. April. 1469-70. Fresco,
width 13'2" (4 m). Hall of the Months, Palazzo Schifanoia, Ferrara
(fig. 15.65). The iconography of the months in this cycle might be
compared with the early Quattrocento cycle from the Castello del
Buonconsiglio in Trent (see fig. 5.24). For a detail of this fresco,
see p. 157.

15.67. ERCOLE DE’ ROBERTI. St, John the Baptist, c . 1478-80.
Panel, 21 V 4 x 12 V 4 " (54 x 31 cm). Gemaldegalerie, Berlin.

and the sea mists that rise around the promontory, port,
and ship behind him have a rosy Bellinesque glow. The
foreground and background are separated by a line that
makes the latter look almost like a backdrop. Perhaps
Roberti intended to leave this relationship unresolved; the
resulting ambiguity is part of the mystery of this haunting
image. The figure, with its subtle contrapposto , and the
landscape reveal Roberti’s understanding of earlier Renais-
sance developments at the same time that he subverted the
naturalistic impulses of the earlier period to focus on
expressing intense emotion and psychological character.

GOTHIC AND RENAISSANCE IN VENICE AND NORTHERN ITALY

439

North Italian Terra-Cotta
Sculpture

The groupings of life-sized terra-cotta figures often found
in northern Italian churches represent a popular devotional
type that has been largely ignored by scholars. When the
polychromy is well preserved, as in the example shown
here by Guido Mazzoni (1450-1518; fig. 15.68), the natu-
ralistic effect is powerful. To come upon a group like this
today in a darkened chapel is like chancing upon a real
event or experience, giving us some notion of the impact
the group must have had when it first created. The great-

est number of these vignettes show the scene of the Lamen-
tation after Christ is taken down from the cross. Less
common are representations of the period immediately
after the Nativity, when the Christ Child is being wor-
shipped, as in this example. The figure on the left here is
probably a portrait of the donor, who guaranteed by his
commission that he would be represented in this attitude of
adoration for many centuries. Both the craggy realism of
his portrait and the delicate smoothness of the face of the
Virgin are characteristic of Quattrocento developments.
This emphasis on emotion and individual physiognomy
will, however, soon be challenged by the serenity and order
of High Renaissance art.

15.68. GUIDO MAZZONI. Adoration of the Child . 1485-89. Polychromed terra-cotta, life-sized. Modena Cathedral. Commissioned by
Francesco Porrini for his family chapel at Sta. Cecilia, Modena.

440 * THE QUATTROCENTO

PART THREE

THE CINOUECENTO

1 6. The Origins of the High Renaissance
1 7. The High Renaissance in Rome
1 8. New Developments c. 1520—50

1 9. High and Tate Renaissance in Venice and on the Mainland
20. The Late Sixteenth Century

TITIAN,

Sacred ami Profane hove
(detail of Eg, 19 J 2),

THE H

T he period that we now call the High Renais-
sance has its origins in the works of
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), who was
born seven years after Botticelli and Perugino
and five years before Filippino Lippi, all of
whose styles belong indisputably to the Quattrocento.
Moreover, all of Leonardo’s most important artistic
achievements were completed or well under way before the
death of Filippino, the first of the three to die, in 1504. The
fact that we tend to think of Leonardo as a Cinquecento
artist and to speak of him together with Michelangelo,
born twenty-three years later in 1475, or with Raphael,
born thirty-one years later in 1483, indicates his revolu-
tionary importance as the creator of the earliest, Florentine
phase of the High Renaissance.

Leonardo da Vinci

The shopworn remark about persons who seem to be
“ahead of their time” can be taken as a statement of fact
in the case of Leonardo. He was ahead of his time not only
in painting, sculpture, and architecture, but also in engi-
neering, military science, botany, anatomy, geology, geo-
graphy, hydraulics, aerodynamics, and optics, to mention
only some of the branches of knowledge in which he made
crucial and, in some cases, original discoveries. Leonardo
was inspired to make innovations in both art and science
because of his conviction that the two were intimately
interrelated. He did not consider them interchangeable:
science seems for him to have been a pragmatic investiga-
tion of nature, while art was an expression of beauty. In

THE ORIGINS OF
IGH RENAISSANCE

both his artistic and scientific activities Leonardo rejected
authority and explored the natural world independently,
without traditional prejudices or the restrictions put on
investigations by religious belief. In an era when the
revived authority of antiquity competed with that of Chris-
tianity, he had little respect for either source. It seems that
for Leonardo final authority emanated from a single
source: the human eye. He maintained that no faculty was
nobler than that of sight. No text, no matter what its pre-
tensions to divine revelation or philosophical authority,
could block the evidence of sight or impede the process of
induction based on sight. As he wrote in his notebooks:

Now do you not see that the eye embraces the beauty of the
whole world? It is the lord of astronomy and the maker of
cosmography; it counsels and corrects all the arts of human-
ity; it moves men to the different parts of the world; it is the
prince of mathematics, its sciences are certain; it has meas-
ured the heights and sizes of the stars, it has found the
elements and their locations ... has generated architecture,
perspective, and the divine art of painting. Oh most excellent
thing above all others created, what peoples, what tongues
shall be those that can fully describe your true operation?
This is the window of the human body, through which it
mirrors its way and brings to fruition the beauty of the
world, by which the soul is content to stay in its
human prison.

We know a great deal about what Leonardo thought
from his writings. The thousands of surviving pages range
from quick jottings to extended analyses. Although he

Opposite: 16.1. MICHELANGELO. David . 1501-4. Marble, height of figure without pedestal 17' (5.18 m); height of figure with pedestal
23' (7 m). Accademia, Florence. Commissioned by the Opera del Duomo, Florence, to be placed on a buttress below the dome.

THE ORIGINS OF THE HIGH RENAISSANCE * 443

16.2. LEONARDO DA VINCI. Storm
Breaking over a Valley . c. 1500. Red chalk
on white paper, 8 x 6" (20.3 x 15.2 cm).
The Royal Collection © 2005, Her Majesty
Queen Elizabeth H.

never assembled them into any sort of order, Leonardo’s
notes crackle with ideas and observations, some not to be
made again by others, much less systematized into a coher-
ent body of theory, for decades or even centuries. Seldom
in his pages do we encounter a classical name, in contrast
to Alberti and Ghiberti, for example, who were always
citing classical authors or artists. Only infrequently do we
find references to God, and occasionally we meet with
caustic comments on organized Christianity (for example,
“Why are we supposed to worship the Son when all the
churches are dedicated to the Mother?”), but nature is
mentioned again and again, and Leonardo’s sketchy views
of mountains (fig. 16.2) are among the earliest known
studies of this subject.

Leonardo’s notebooks also reveal his detachment from
his fellow human beings and their ways. He admired the

human body as a work of nature but somehow felt that
humans did not deserve so fine an instrument; he called
them “sacks for food” and “fillers-up of privies.” In spite
of his conversational gifts, in his writings there is no hint
that he ever cared deeply for another human being. Flo-
rentine though he was, he could detach himself sufficiently
from the concerns of his native republic to work for
Ludovico Sforza, duke of Milan, or even for Cesare
Borgia, son of Pope Alexander VI, against whose armies
the Florentines were trying to preserve their liberties.

Leonardo may have derived some of his aloofness from
the circumstances of his birth, for he was born the illegiti-
mate child of a notary in the little town of Vinci, about 20
miles west of Florence. At an early age he was taken from
his peasant mother, about whom we know next to nothing,
and brought up by his father and his father’s wife.

444

THE CINQUECENTO

A notary in Italy verifies the legality of contracts, takes a
percentage from both contracting parties, and can make
himself prosperous, which Leonardo’s father seems to have
done. But Leonardo’s life was clouded by his illegitimacy,
which brought with it legal disadvantages. In addition,
he was left-handed, which had a distinctly unfavorable
connotation (although the Italian expression for “left-
handed” is the mild word mancino , the term for “left” is
sinistro). Leonardo drew and wrote from right to left, for
his own benefit, and scholars often use a mirror to read
his writings.

Over and over in Leonardo’s writings one encounters the
lament, “Who will tell me if anything was ever finished?”
It is true that his pursuit of the elusive aspects of nature
was never finished; nor were a number of his works, and
few of the finished ones survive in anything like the form
he intended. Some of Leonardo’s contemporaries com-
plained that his scientific and mechanical interests kept
him from his activities as an artist. A fuller picture of his
interests and style can be gained from his drawings,
both the studies intended for specific paintings and sculp-
tures and the sketches that illustrate almost every page of
his notes.

THE DRAWINGS. Not even the smallest of living
things is neglected in Leonardo’s drawings. A cat, an
insect, a flower — each is worthy of prolonged study. In a
drawing of plants including a star of Bethlehem (fig. 16.3),
for instance, Leonardo rendered the shapes of the leaves
accurately but was also concerned with the rhythm of the
plant’s growth and the elusive qualities of natural life and
motion: the leaves seem to unfold before us, like time-lapse
photographs of plants growing and blossoming. Leonardo
could move from the microcosm — the smallest detail — to
the macrocosm — the universal — with the ease of Nether-
landish masters such as Jan van Eyck, whose work he may
have studied. During his stay in Milan, he climbed the
slopes of the nearby Alps and recorded what he saw, notic-
ing, for example, fossilized shells embedded in sedimentary
rocks. Having calculated the time required for nature to
produce such a phenomenon and carry the shells to such
heights, he concluded that the world could not have been
created in 4004 BCE, as theologians at the time maintained.

In his notebooks, Leonardo described the immense
power of the artist:

If the painter wishes to see beauties that charm him, it lies in
his power to create them, and if he wishes to see monstrosi-
ties that are frightful, ridiculous, or truly pitiable, he is lord
and God thereof; and if he wishes to generate sites and
deserts, shady and cool places in hot weather he can do so,
and also warm places in cold weather. If he wishes from the

high summits of the mountains to uncover the great country-
sides, and if he wishes after them to see the horizon of the
sea, he is lord of it, and if from the low valleys he wishes to
see the high mountains, or from the high mountains the low
valleys and beaches, and in effect that which is in the universe
for essence, presence, or imagination, he has it first in his
mind and then in his hands, and these are of such excellence
that in equal time they generate a proportionate harmony in
a single glance, as does nature.

Leonardo displays such an ability in a red chalk
drawing (see fig. 16.2) depicting a landscape that stretches
into a cloudy Alpine valley and then above storms
to snowcapped summits. No earlier artist had so success-
fully captured both the vastness of the natural world and
its transitory nature.

Aside from the satisfaction that such studies gave him,
they assisted Leonardo in promoting one of his favorite
causes — the superiority of the painter. God has often been
called an artist and the process of creation compared to
artistic activity. Leonardo reversed the metaphor and saw
the artist’s creativity as analogous to that of God: “The
deity that invests the science of the painter functions in
such a way that the mind of the painter is transformed into

16.3. LEONARDO DA VINCI. Star-of-Betklehem and Other
Plants, c. 1505-8. Pen and red pencil, 7 3 M x 6V4" (19.8 x 16 cm).
The Royal Collection © 2005, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

THE ORIGINS OF THE HIGH RENAISSANCE * 445

16.4. LEONARDO DA
VINCI. Bird’s-eye View
of the Chiana Valley ,
Showing Arezzo , Cortona ,
Perugia , and Siena.
c. 1502-3. Pen and ink
and color, 13 V 4 x 19V8 1 '
(33.8 x 48.8 cm). The
Royal Collection © 2005,
Her Majesty Queen
Elizabeth II.

a copy of the divine mind, since it operates freely in creat-
ing many kinds of animals, plants, fruits, landscapes, coun-
trysides, ruins, and awe-inspiring places.”

In Leonardo’s day, the Liberal Arts still excluded paint-
ing in spite of earlier efforts to include it (see p. 25). In his
Treatise on Painting (compiled after his death by his pupil
Francesco Melzi), Leonardo argued at length not only for
the inclusion of painting among the Liberal Arts but also
for its precedence over poetry or music, since these depend
on the ear, and the eye is the superior organ. He argued
that it is better to be deaf than blind, and pointed out that
when the last note of a song has died away, the music is
over and must be played again to exist, while a picture is
constantly there. He asked if anyone ever traveled a great
distance to read a poem, while pictures are the goal of
many pilgrimages.

After many similar arguments, Leonardo turned to
sculpture, which he was determined to exclude from the
Liberal Arts or, at least, place in a rank below that of paint-
ing. The elegantly dressed painter could sit in a studio,
with soft breezes entering from the gardens through the
open windows, and listen to music while working without
physical strain. The sculptor must attack the stone with
hammer and chisel, sweating and covered with marble dust
that mingles with sweat to form a gritty paste. The sculp-
tor must also endure being deafened by the noise of
hammer and chisel on stone.

Leonardo’s interests were also practical; many of his
drawings are studies of drainage, irrigation, water trans-
portation, and military campaigns. He made a number of
bird’s-eye views showing a large area of central Italy. One
vista (fig. 16.4) stretches from Arezzo at the left to Perugia
at the extreme upper right, with Siena just to the left of
lower center; Leonardo’s knowledge of the terrain, which
enabled him to make what is in reality an aerial view, is
most impressive. This drawing was apparently made as
part of a project to divert water into the Arno from a lake
in the central Chiana Valley, but it might also have had
some purpose in Cesare Borgia’s military campaigns.
Leonardo was also able, without the benefit of surveying
instruments, to draw relief maps in the modern sense, in
which the forms are shaded according to their altitude.

In his treatise On Architecture , the ancient Roman
architect Vitruvius described how an ideally proportioned
human figure would fit within both a circle, with the navel
at the center, and a square. Earlier architects had tried
unconvincingly to fit a human figure into such a scheme,
but it was Leonardo who created the most convincing
visual representation of Vitruvius’s proposal (fig. 16.5).

Leonardo studied the human body as it had never been
studied before. His drawings from the nude model — such
as one in red chalk (fig. 16.6), a medium that Leonardo
was among the first to use — show a new attentiveness to
the structure of the body. In his writings he admonished

446 •

THE CINQUECENTO

16.5. LEONARDO DA VINCI. Vitruvian Man: Study of the
Human Body (Le Proporzione del Corpo Umano). c. 1490. Pen and
ink, I 3 V 2 x 97s " (34.3 x 24.5 cm). Galleria delPAccademia, Venice.

artists not to exaggerate the musculature, like those who
mistakenly made their figures look like “sacks of nuts” (he
was most likely referring to Michelangelo), and in his
drawings he emphasized the grace of the figure as a whole.
Beginning with his initial anatomical studies in Milan in
the mid-1480s, Leonardo carried anatomical dissection to
remarkable lengths; it is recorded that he dissected more
than thirty bodies. His anatomical drawings, made for the
purposes of scientific investigation and demonstration, are
usually accompanied by a commentary written as he
worked. A drawing that compares the behavior of the
muscles of the human leg to that of cords (fig. 16.7)
demonstrates how Leonardo sought to understand and
record the complexity of human anatomy in a lucid, scien-
tific manner. These drawings are part of Leonardo’s explo-
ration of the natural world, and only occasionally are they
influenced by tradition at the expense of observation. His
analyses of how muscles and tendons are connected to
bones and how joints and muscles work in unison had an
immediate bearing on the art of the High and Late Renais-
sance — but they had little effect on Leonardo’s own work,

16.6. LEONARDO DA VINCI. Male Nude. c. 1503-7.
Red chalk, 1074 x 6 V 4 " (27 x 16 cm). The Royal Collection
© 2005, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

which had come almost to a stop at the time he embarked
on his most extensive series of detailed anatomical studies.

Leonardo’s drawings for machines are so accurate and
the principles involved so well understood that it has been
possible for modern engineers to build a number of them.
They include refinements on all sorts of known mechanical
principles and improvements of pumps, dredges, pulleys,
and tackles. His designs for weapons range from cross-
bows to chariots equipped with rotating scythe blades for
dismembering the enemy, and include improvements to
artillery as well as, ironically, defenses against his own
innovations. Among his inventions are an automotive
machine equipped with a differential transmission, a
mobile fortress somewhat like a modern tank, and a flying
machine — all of which, however, lacked an adequate
source of power. Leonardo’s optical studies and his inven-
tion of machines for grinding concave mirrors resulted
in a telescope that was in existence by 1509, a century
before Galileo.

Although, as far as we know, none of Leonardo’s archi-
tectural plans was ever built, his architectural drawings

THE ORIGINS OF THE HIGH RENAISSANCE

447

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16.7. LEONARDO DA VINCI. Studies of a Left
Leg, Showing Bones and Tendons, c. 1508. Pen and
ink, 8 V 2 x 4 l / 4 " (21.5 x 11 cm). The Royal Collection
© 2005, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

promoted new principles of design that had a far-reaching
effect on buildings by others. It might be said that
Leonardo founded the High Renaissance style in architec-
ture just as he did in painting. For Leonbattista Alberti,
whom the youthful Leonardo may have met and whose
ideas he must have known, the best form of building was
a centralized structure because, he believed, architecture is
founded on nature, and nature, in plants and in the struc-
ture of animals, is centralized. In addition, Vitruvius’ asser-
tion that the circle was the ideal universal form inspired a
number of domed, centrally planned churches during this
period (see figs. 12.21-12.23, 17.9-17.10, 17.16, 18.1,
18.54-18.55), the most important of which is New St.
Peter’s in Rome, by Donato Bramante (see figs.
17.11-17.1 5) and Michelangelo (see figs. 20.9-20.1 1 ). For
some of these buildings, Leonardo’s architectural plans
may have played an influential role.

Vasari complained that Leonardo had wasted time cov-
ering sheets of paper with meaningless squares, triangles,

circles, and so forth; what he was probably doing,
however, was exploring permutations and combinations of
geometric figures as he developed ground plans for build-
ings. In a number of architectural drawings Leonardo
began with ground plans composed of simple geometric
elements, and then proceeded, as he moved from right to
left, to erect churches in perspective upon these plans. The
drawing in figure 16.8 shows an octagonal church sur-
rounded by eight domed circular chapels, each with eight
niches; a diamond plan with apses on the sides and towers
on the points; and sketches for two more centralized plans.
While these plans follow Alberti’s principles, the details
recall Brunelleschi’s dome for Florence Cathedral and his
plan for Santo Spirito (see figs. 6.7, 6.19). The end result,
however, is something entirely new. The buildings are not
juxtapositions of flat planes, as are Brunelleschi’s, or inert
masses, like Alberti’s. They are similar to living organisms
that radiate outward from a central core, like the petals of
a flower or the rays of a snow crystal. What Leonardo
created — and this is the basis of High Renaissance compo-
sition in architecture, sculpture, and painting — is a unified

16.8. LEONARDO DA VINCI. Plans and Perspective Views of
Domed Churches . c. 1490. Pen and ink, 9 x 6V4 M (23 x 16 cm).
Institut de France, Paris.

448 •

THE CINQUECENTO

16.9. LEONARDO DA VINCI. Head of a Youth; Architectural
Studies for Sforza Castle, c. 1495. Red chalk, pen and ink, 9 3 /4 x
6 3 /4" (25.2 x 17.2 cm). The Royal Collection © 2005, Her Majesty
Queen Elizabeth II.

totality that is the product of the dynamic interrelationship
of its components. Antonio del Pollaiuolo had hit on some-
thing similar in the triangular composition of the archers
in his St. Sebastian (see fig. 13.7) — or perhaps the youthful
Leonardo suggested the notion to him.

Leonardo did not stop at individual buildings or parts of
buildings, such as the turret for the Sforza Castle that he
drew on the same page as a study of a youth that he later
used for an apostle in the Last Supper (fig. 16.9). He also
designed solutions for the urban problems of his day,
including underground canals for the removal of refuse,
streets for horse-drawn traffic below elevated walkways,
and pedestrian malls designed for human enjoyment. Not
one of these was realized at the time, but the ideas are
typical of Leonardo’s concern with discovering principles
of order in the apparent disorder of life.

What fascinated him perhaps more consistently than any
other natural phenomenon was the behavior of water. His
notebooks abound with schemes for providing it in abun-
dance to cities, rendering it useful and free of obstruction

in harbors, and making it a safe means of transportation in
rivers and canals. Leonardo must have sat hour after hour
studying the patterns produced by a stream as it strikes a
body of water, penetrating it in spiral eddies, emerging
again on the surface in bubbling circles (fig. 16.10). Some-
times he thrust a board at various angles into a rushing
stream and drew the patterns that resulted. He noted that
such shapes resemble curls of hair and that the principles
of spiral growth in the leaves of plants are found in water
as well.

On a page where Leonardo drew the valves of the
human heart, he wrote, “Let no one who is not a mathe-
matician read my principles.” An important source of
Leonardo’s scientific investigations and creative imagina-
tion was his perception that nature was based on
mathematical structures. Faith in the certainty of mathe-
matical principles enabled Leonardo to correlate a broad
yet diverse range of studies. The unified, pyramidal com-
position of the figures in his Madonna of the Rocks (see
fig. 16.18), for example, and the pyramidal form of
the parachute he designed are both related to his

16.10. LEONARDO DA VINCI. Studies of Water Movements.
c. 1505. Pen and ink, IIV 2 x 8" (29 x 20 cm). The Royal Collection
© 2005, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

THE ORIGINS OF THE HIGH RENAISSANCE

449

understanding of the efficiency demonstrated in a tri-
cusped heart valve or an arrangement that used three ball
bearings. Leonardo’s use of the triangle in painting is thus
related to his investigations of nature and mechanics,
demonstrating that art, as he wrote, “truly is a science.”

EARLY PAINTINGS. Still unresolved are many questions
concerning the interrelationship of Leonardo and his
master, Andrea del Verrocchio, with whom he worked as
an apprentice for several years around 1470. What does
seem clear is the young artist’s participation in Verrocchio’s
Baptism of Christ (fig. 16.11; see also fig. 13.12). Most of
the painting demonstrates the hand of Verrocchio, but the
two kneeling angels contrast with each other: the curly-
headed boy at the right still belongs to the world of Fra
Filippo Lippi and must be by Verrocchio, but his compan-
ion on the left looks out from deep, luminous eyes, his hair
streaming from forehead to shoulders in the mysterious
swirls of Leonardo’s water patterns. And the shimmering

16.11. LEONARDO DA VINCI. Detail of the Baptism of Christ,
painted with Verrocchio (fig. 13.12). Begun 1468 or 1471;
completed c. 1476. Uffizi Gallery, Florence. Commissioned
for S. Salvi, Florence.

surface of the water behind him, breaking into rapids over
shoals, its juncture with the rocks masked by mists, is by
the artist who later painted the landscape of the Mona Lisa
(see fig. 16.29). Possibly the pristine water in the fore-
ground should also be attributed to Leonardo.

Another of Leonardo’s few remaining works from his
early Florentine period is the Annunciation (fig. 16.12).
Most critics now agree that this was painted when
Leonardo was in his early twenties, although some special-
ists still argue that he produced it while still a teenager. The
Virgin is seated outside a villa with granite walls and per-
fectly projected corner quoins of pietra serena . Her book
rests on a lectern made from a Roman sepulchral urn that
is rendered with remarkable detail. Mary acknowledges
the angel’s message by lifting her hand in a gesture of
restrained surprise, but not a trace of emotion disturbs her
features. Gabriel kneels before her on a carpet of grass and
flowers, each of which is rendered with Leonardo’s botan-
ical accuracy and sense of rhythmic growth. Over the
garden wall, past cypresses and cedars, is a port, with
towers, lighthouses, and ships.

That the picture seems decades later than Ghirlandaio’s
Nativity and Adoration of the Shepherds (see fig. 13.37)
rather than several years earlier reminds us of the revolu-
tionary nature of Leonardo’s vision and work. The subtlety
of the distant atmospheric veil that Leonardo interposes
between the background landscape and our eye — which he
discusses at length in his writings — is completely new. The
blue air becomes denser as we look toward the shimmer-
ing mountains, which resemble the Apuan Alps seen from
Monte Oliveto. The figures’ drapery, solid and sculptural,
reveals Leonardo’s method as recorded by Vasari (fig.
16.13): after soaking a piece of linen in gesso, Leonardo
would arrange it over a small figure and allow it to harden.
He would then move it into the appropriate light and draw
it with a brush on linen canvas before starting to paint the
final picture.

The two faces in the Annunciation are without
shadow, even though the light that enters the picture with
the angel casts a dark shadow on the grass and creates a
strong play of shadows in the drapery over Mary’s knees.
In his notebooks, Leonardo warned against drawing or
painting faces in the direct light of the sun, emphasizing
the beauty of faces passed in the street in the morning
before dawn, or in the early evening, right after sunset. At
those times, he noted, you see soft and mysterious
expressions, forms that you cannot quite grasp, and the
faces take on an inexplicable loveliness and grace. To
produce such effects in the studio, he recommended paint-
ing all four walls of a courtyard black, stretching a sheet of
linen over the courtyard, and then placing the model under
this linen so that the light, thus diffused, would illuminate

450

THE CINQUECENTO

16.12. LEONARDO DA VINCI. Annunciation . 1472-75. Panel, 3'2 3 /4" x 7’l 1 /2 1 ' (98 x 217 cm). Uffizi Gallery, Florence.
Commissioned by the monks of the monastery of Monte Oliveto, outside Florence.

the face without sharp reflections or shadows to break
up the forms. This is exactly the effect he achieved in
his Annunciation.

16.13. LEONARDO DA VINCI. Study of Drapery fora Seated
Figure. 1470s. Brush and tempera, IOV 2 x 10" (26.5 x 25.3 cm).
The Louvre, Paris.

These procedures for studying and rendering light reveal
that darkness precedes light in his thought. In Leonardo’s
paintings, form and color must compete for their existence
against the surrounding dark and the overlying bluish
atmosphere. As a result, color enjoys a new and deeper res-
onance, form has a more convincing three-dimensional
existence, and the darkest shadows merge to give the
picture a new kind of unity. This is in sharp contrast to the
artificially bright world rendered by most of Leonardo’s
Florentine contemporaries.

Leonardo’s early style is well represented by his revolu-
tionary portrait of the daughter of a wealthy Florentine
banker, Ginevra de’ Benci, which has an emblem of the
sitter painted on the back (figs. 16.14-16.15). The paint-
ing is usually dated to the period around 1474, the year
when Ginevra married. This is the earliest known painted
female portrait in which the sitter turns toward the viewer,
and the first to include her hands. Unfortunately, nearly 8
inches were cut off the bottom of the painting sometime
before 1780. Although that part of the painting is lost, a
drawing that may represent Ginevra’s hands survives, and
a reconstruction based on the drawing helps us to appreci-
ate how unconventional this portrait must have been. The
costume, the hairstyle, and the placement of the hands del-
icately holding a bouquet of flowers are all similar to those
in Portrait of a Lady with Flowers (see fig. 13.14), a sculp-
ture created in Verrocchio’s workshop at approximately
the same time. Ginevra’s long fingers remind us that hands
such as these were one of the attributes of the perfect

THE ORIGINS OF THE HIGH RENAISSANCE

4 5 I

Renaissance woman. Ginevra discreetly avoids our glance,
another indication of social refinement in a woman during
this period and one that Leonardo decisively ignored when
he painted the Mona Lisa (see fig. 16.29). The play of light
and shadow on Ginevra is restrained, with oil paint

making possible the delicate transitions from light to very
limited effects of shadow. A recent technical examination
has revealed that Leonardo also exploited his medium by
using his fingers to blend the colors at the point where the
juniper bush meets the distant landscape.

16.14. LEONARDO DA VINCI. Portrait of Ginevra de 3 Bend
(obverse), c. 1474. Oil on panel; size without reconstruction,

15 x 14 9 /i6 x 7 /i 6 1 ’ (38. 1x37x1.1 cm). National Gallery of Art,
Washington, D.C. Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund. Purchased from the
Princes of Lichtenstein in 1967. Probably commissioned by Bernardo
Bembo, the Venetian ambassador to Florence. Conjectural digital
reconstruction including missing lower third (approximate). Digital
reconstruction © 2002 Board of Trustees. The lighter portion of the
illustration indicates the area that has been reconstructed.

Leonardo’s technique combined oil glazes with tempera; a pounced
cartoon was used to transfer his design for painting. Ginevra, the
daughter of a Florentine banker, married in 1474. The juniper
branches in the background, the pigment of which has darkened,
are a visual reference to the name of Ginevra, which means juniper.

16.15. LEONARDO DA VINCI. Reverse of Portrait of Ginevra
de’ Bend, fig. 16.14. c. 1474. Tempera on panel; size without
reconstruction, 15 x 14 9 /i6 x 7 /i6" (38.1 x37 x 1.1 cm). National
Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund.
Conjectural digital reconstruction includes missing lower third
(approximate). Digital reconstruction © 2002 Board of Trustees.

The lighter portion of the illustration indicates the area that has
been reconstructed.

The motto on the scroll reads “Beauty Adorns Virtue.” In the Medici
circle in Florence, it was a common and accepted courtly activity to
express one’s love for an unattainable ideal beauty in sonnets and
portraiture. Florentine humanists, including Lorenzo de’ Medici,
wrote poems celebrating Ginevra’s beauty. The sonnets were based
on a tradition begun by Petrarch in the fourteenth century in the
poems he wrote to his beloved Laura.

452

THE CINQUECENTO

THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI . The Adora-
tion of the Magi (fig. 16.16), commissioned in March
1481, was left unfinished when Leonardo departed for
Milan sometime late in 1481 or early 1482. But unfinished
is hardly the proper word for a picture in which there is
not a touch of color. What we see is an incomplete under-
drawing that has been reinforced with a dark wash to
establish the structure of shadows. While the methods used
in this underdrawing are revealing in themselves and offer
visual proof of the attitudes toward light found in
Leonardo’s writings, his style at this time would have
demanded the same kind of finish and detail that we see in
the Annunciation (see fig. 16.12).

Leonardo’s revolutionary Adoration comes only a few
years after Botticelli’s altarpiece on the same subject for
Santa Maria Novella (see fig. 13.18), and probably before
the latter’s Washington Adoration (see fig. 13.20), yet
Leonardo’s composition offers a sense of unity not found
in Botticelli’s works. A perspective study for Leonardo’s
Adoration (fig. 16.17) shows that he originally intended to
include the ruins and shed of the Botticelli tradition. The
main focus here is linear perspective, and the principal

groups of figures do not appear — Leonardo analyzed them
separately in other drawings — but the followers of the
magi can be seen on the steps and ruins. A camel crouches
in front of the steps, and in the background, at the vanish-
ing point, a man tries to maintain his balance on a rearing
horse, while another horse kicks backward with both legs.
Leonardo may have observed these motifs in Uccello’s
Battle of San Romano (see figs. 11.5-11.6), but these are
far from Uccello’s geometricized horses; they are as full of
uncontrollable energy as the water that fascinated
Leonardo, and — like the rushing water — such horses
reappeared often in his imagination as symbols of the
forces of nature.

In the painting Leonardo omitted the shed and, there-
fore, its elaborate perspective construction. The ruins
remain, abbreviated somewhat — and still in flawless per-
spective — but now they are relegated to a background
position. The arches are broken and the figures and horses
surge beneath them. The camel has vanished, and both
horses rear on their hind legs as if their riders were in
combat. The composition is now unified by the geometry
that was so important to Leonardo, with the Madonna

16.16. LEONARDO DA VINCI.
Adoration of the Magi. Begun
1481. Panel, 7’ 8* X 8'9" (2.33 x
2.66 m). Uffizi Gallery, Florence.
Commissioned by the monks of
S. Donato a Scopeto for their
monastery.

THE ORIGINS OF THE HIGH RENAISSANCE

4 5 3

16.17. LEONARDO DA VINCI. Architectural Perspective and Background Figures, for the Adoration of the Magi, c. 1481. Pen and ink,
wash, and white, 6 V 2 x IIV 2 1 ' (16.5 x 29 cm). Gabinetto dei Disegni e Stampe, Uffizi Gallery, Florence.

and Child as the apex of a stable pyramid, the base of
which is formed by the kings and the surging crowds to the
sides, who are encompassed within a semicircle.

The idea that the scene of the Adoration should be
crowded with the retinue that accompanied the kings can
surely be related to the procession that took place in
Florence on January 6 each year. The precedents for
Leonardo’s painting include Gentile da Fabriano’s altar-
piece from the 1420s (see fig. 8.2) and those of Botticelli
mentioned above. However, Leonardo here demonstrates
an interest in the group psychology that results when
crowds are drawn together by the electric excitement of
an event. Whatever their ostensible subject, in fact,
Leonardo’s compositions always seem to be expositions of
his psychological interests. The yearning that sends the
magi to their knees runs like a storm through the crowd of
attendants, who are divided into two types: old men with
sunken cheeks and eyes and beautiful young boys with
flowing locks.

When we observe the technical procedures of earlier
painters from unfinished or damaged works or deduce
them from pictorial surfaces, we see that they drew con-
tours on white priming and then applied color between
these outlines. Leonardo, on the other hand, seems to have
started with a dark wash of the sort that created the areas
of shadow that were so important in the Annunciation.

The light areas — the figures — are the residue, but the dark-
ness has invaded many of them. He then defined the edges
of these shadows with the brush. Leonardo’s reversal of the
traditional roles of light and dark is revolutionary. Dark-
ness is here universal, and light must struggle against it.
Light fascinated him, and his notes record luminary exper-
iments and analyses, including even a projector powered
by a candle. Once he had defined the basic light areas,
Leonardo sharpened the details, always as a movement of
dark against light. With a few touches he could make a
beautiful young head or a ravaged old one spring into
being, full of life and emotion. At times ghostly in its soft-
ness, at times volcanic in its power, the dark wash of the
Adoration seems to pour over figures, horses, and vegeta-
tion. The tree in the upper left corner shows the method
clearly: a few horizontal strokes of the brush represent the
foliage; later he would have united these masses with a
trunk and branches.

That this unfinished painting has survived in this condi-
tion for so many centuries suggests a respect for Leonardo
and his remarkable inventiveness that must date back to
the 1480s. Such a large, prepared panel could easily have
been used by another artist, even Filippino Lippi, who
replaced Leonardo to produce the Adoration altarpiece
needed by the monks of San Donato a Scopeto. To preserve
Leonardo’s delicate washes the panel was later varnished.

4 5 4

THE CINQUECENTO

LEONARDO IN MILAN. Leonardo left Florence in
1481 or 1482 for a stay of nearly twenty years in Milan.
In his letter of application to Duke Ludovico Sforza,
Leonardo spoke eloquently about his abilities as a civil and
military engineer, emphasizing how his inventions could
further the duke’s conquests and render life more agreeable
in his capital. He also suggested a sculptural project for an
equestrian monument to the duke’s late father. Only at the
end did he mention his skills as a painter. Soon after he
arrived, however, he demonstrated his artistic mastery in
the Madonna of the Rocks. Two versions survive: an
earlier one, begun in 1483 and now in the Louvre (fig.
16.18) and a later one in the National Gallery in London
(not illustrated). One or both were painted for the Confra-
ternity of the Immaculate Conception, which had a chapel
in San Francesco Grande in Milan. According to a docu-
ment of 1483, the painting was part of a complex by
Leonardo, two of his pupils, and an independent sculptor.
The history of the London version can be traced continu-
ously from the original altar until its sale to an English col-
lector in 1785. Could it have been substituted at some time
and for some unknown reason for the Paris version? There
is no general agreement, but the majority of scholars
concede that the Louvre panel is earlier and entirely by
Leonardo, whereas the London panel, even if designed by
the master, has areas painted by pupils that are consistent
with the date of 1506, when there was a controversy
between the artists and the confraternity.

The doctrine that Mary was free from all stain of origi-
nal sin, central to the confraternity of the Immaculate Con-
ception and promulgated in papal bulls written by Pope
Sixtus IV close to the date when Leonardo painted the
picture, was represented in a sculpted image at the same
altar (above or below the painting) and infiltrated the
meaning of Leonardo’s painting. The artist shows the
Virgin kneeling, her arm around the Baptist and her left
hand extended protectively over the seated Christ Child,
who is worshipped by John. An angel steadies the Christ
Child and looks outward toward (but not directly at) the
spectator, while pointing at John. The composition creates
the unified pyramid that became the basis of High Renais-
sance compositional practice. The most extraordinary
aspect of the painting is its background, a wilderness of
jagged rocks rising almost to the apex of the arch. We look
through the rocks into mysterious vistas flanked by pinna-
cles that rise from dim watercourses until we lose sight of
them in the misty distance. According to tradition, the cave
of the Nativity was mystically identified with the cave of
the Sepulcher, and St. Antoninus claimed that both are
foretold in the Song of Songs: “O my dove, that art in the
clefts of the rock, in the secret places [caverna] of the
stairs, let me see thy countenance” (2:14). Antoninus’s

dove may be interpreted as a reference to the Virgin Mary,
and perhaps the shadowy caves were intended to suggest
humanity’s dark mortality, which needs the divine light
that enters through Mary as the immaculate vessel of
God’s purpose. Leonardo chose muted colors, uniting
them within his geometric composition by the shadows
that envelop each form.

Leonardo’s silverpoint study for the head of the angel
(fig. 16.19), made on rose-colored paper and heightened
with white, shows the delicate modeling possible in this
difficult technique. Leonardo may well have used the
method recommended in his notebooks — setting the model
in a black courtyard beneath a linen sheet — and he repro-
duced the effect of this illumination with strokes of silver-
point that are so sensitive and close to each other they
almost blend into an all-over tone. The light that gives “a
grace to faces,” as Leonardo put it, strikes the luminous
eyes, while the hair is suggested by a few simple lines.

Leonardo’s projects for the duke of Milan ranged from
military and civil engineering to costumed pageants
enlivened by mechanical devices, but we know little about
the monument that was his major artistic undertaking for
the duke. Judging from a fiery preparatory drawing (fig.
16.20), Francesco Sforza was to have been reining in a
rearing horse while an enemy cowered below. Military
leaders on rearing steeds appear often in ancient relief
sculptures, many of them accessible to Leonardo. Piero
della Francesca had used the motif in the Battle of Hera-
chus and Chosroes (see fig. 11.26), but it remained for
Leonardo to translate the notion into a project for a colos-
sal statue in the round.

We have no way of knowing why Leonardo ultimately
renounced the dramatic idea in favor of a striding pose, in
the tradition of Donatello and Verrocchio (see figs. 10.23,
13.16). Drawings show he developed both ideas simulta-
neously; it is possible that the duke objected to the uncon-
ventional idea, or perhaps Leonardo became discouraged
by the technical problems of casting and raising such a pre-
cariously balanced group in bronze on a large scale.

For a while the duke considered hiring another artist for
the project, but in 1490 Leonardo set to work. Based on
exhaustive anatomical studies of horses, he produced a
full-scale model approximately 24 feet high in clay or
plaster as well as plans for casting it in bronze. Unhappily,
the drawings are our only evidence for the monument.
After Louis XII ascended the French throne in 1498, he
laid claim, as a descendant of the expelled Visconti, to the
duchy of Milan, and the duke found himself in a military
crisis that made it impossible for Leonardo to obtain the
necessary metal. The French invaders who chased out
Ludovico Sforza in 1499 used Leonardo’s colossal model
for target practice. What was left soon fell to pieces.

THE ORIGINS OF THE HIGH RENAISSANCE

4 5 5

456 •

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‘/

16.19. LEONARDO DA VINCI. Study of the Head of the Angel,
for the Madonna of the Rocks, c. 1483. Silverpoint and white on
prepared paper, 7 1 / 4 x 6V4" (18.4 x 15.9 cm). Royal Library, Turin.

The ruined condition of Leonardo’s Last Supper (figs.
16.21-16.26) is due to Leonardo’s technical experimenta-
tion. An artist as sensitive as Leonardo to the slightest
throb of light and fluctuation in atmosphere was bound to
be impatient with the fresco technique, which did not
allow the time needed to establish either his unifying
system of shadows or his perfect luminous finish to the
details. After preparing the wall with a base layer covered
with a thin layer of lead white, Leonardo built up his com-
position and colors using layers in a manner resembling
tempera painting on panel. According to contemporary
accounts, Leonardo would sometimes stand on the scaf-
folding all morning studying the relationships of tone
without picking up a brush. Dampness between the layers
prevented them from drying properly and the paint even-
tually began to flake off the wall. When completed, the
painting inspired extravagant praise, but by 1517, while
the artist was still alive, it had started to deteriorate; an
engraving reproduced here gives some idea of the many
details that are lost today (see fig. 16.26). When Vasari saw

16.20. LEONARDO DA VINCI. Horseman Trampling on Foe,
Study for an Equestrian Monument to Francesco Sforza. c. 1485.
Silverpoint on greenish ground, 6 x 7V4" (15.2 x 18.4 cm). The Royal
Collection © 2005, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Monument
commissioned by Ludovico Sforza.

the painting in 1566, he wrote that it was “in such a bad
state that there is nothing more to be seen than a mass of
confusion.” It was repainted twice in the eighteenth
century, suffered from the brutality of Napoleonic soldiers
and of the monks, who cut a door through it, and was
again repainted in the nineteenth century. In 1943 Allied
bombs destroyed much of the refectory that housed the
painting but Leonardo’s repainted masterpiece survived,
protected by sandbags supported on steel tubing. Extensive
conservation efforts after World War II disclosed some of
the original under the repainting, and a recent scientific
restoration revealed Leonardo’s delicacy of touch and
luminosity of color in a few better-preserved areas.

The numerous reproductions of the Last Supper have
numbed us to the power of Leonardo’s innovative compo-
sition. Two preliminary drawings (figs. 16.21-16.22) show
Leonardo experimenting with rather informal groupings of
figures at a table. It is uncertain why one of these table
scenes, very quickly sketched, shares the page with a geo-
metrical drawing, rows of numbers, and sketches that seem
to be based on architecture, but it demonstrates that the
rules of mathematics and geometry were constantly in
Leonardo’s mind. In both drawings Leonardo placed Judas

Opposite: 16.18. LEONARDO DA VINCI. Madonna of the Rocks. Begun 1483. Panel, transferred to canvas, 6'6 x /i" x 4' (2 x 1.2 m)*
The Louvre, Paris. Commissioned by the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception for their chapel in S. Francesco Grande, Milan.

THE ORIGINS OF THE HIGH RENAISSANCE

4 5 7

16.21. LEONARDO DA VINCI. Sketches for the Last Supper; Architectural and Geometric Sketches, c. 1493-95. Pen and golden brown ink,
IOV 2 x 8 7 /i6" (26.6 x 21.4 cm). The Royal Collection © 2005, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

458 •

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Right: 16.22. LEONARDO DA VINCI.
Study of Composition of Last Supper.
c. 1495. Red chalk, IOV 4 x I 5 V 2 "

(26 x 39.4 cm). Accademia, Venice.

on our side of the table, as had Gaddi, Castagno, and
Ghirlandaio (see figs. 3.31, 11.1, 13.35), but he later chose
instead to challenge the viewer to find Judas amid the loyal
disciples behind the table. The Gospel of St. John (13:26)
states that Christ identified the betrayer by handing him a
piece of bread dipped in wine, while in the Gospels of
Matthew and Mark, Christ indicated, “He who dippeth
with me in the dish,” and in Luke, “He whose hand is with
me on the table.” Leonardo used the text from Luke, for
Judas 5 open hand is on the table, stretching after the bread.
In the small group of figures to the right in the drawing
that includes the circle, Leonardo experimented with
Christ's gesture, drawing it in two positions, while Judas
rises eagerly in response. In the final painting Christ’s
hands gesture toward the bread and the wine, suggesting a
reference to the institution of the Eucharist (fig 16.23).

Leonardo fused this episode with yet a third narrative
moment recounted by Matthew, Mark, and Luke: “Verily I
say unto you, that one of you shall betray me. And they were
exceeding sorrowful, and began every one to say unto him,
Lord, is it I?” Instead of emphasizing the betrayer, Leonardo
showed how the announcement sparked astonishment on
the part of the apostles and the searching of their own souls.
Donatello represented varied human responses to a dramatic
event in his Feast of Herod (see fig. 7.18), but Leonardo
went further, composing the apostles’ varied reactions in
accordance with his view that mathematical unity under-
lies all experience. As if by inexorable law, Christ’s revela-
tion factors the twelve apostles into four groups of three
each, set around the axial figure of Christ to establish
a symmetrical order that controls the composition.

Leonardo was certainly aware of the traditional symbolic
meaning of these numbers. Three, the number of the Trinity,
is the most sacred, while four conveys the essence of matter
in the elements of earth, air, fire, and water. More complex
numerical symbolism has also been seen here, for there are
three Theological Virtues and four is the number of the
Gospels, the Cardinal Virtues, the Rivers of Paradise, the
seasons of the year, and the times of day. Three plus four
makes seven, the number of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, the
Joys of the Virgin, and the Sorrows of the Virgin. Three
times four makes twelve, the number not only of the apostles
in the picture, but also of the gates of the New Jerusalem,
the months of the year, and the hours of the day and night.
Christ, the divider, appears at the center of both light and
space, at the vanishing point of the perspective. Windows are
symbols of revelation, and Christ, placed before the central
of three windows, is the Second Person of the Trinity.

How much of this symbolism offered by later inter-
preters may have been conscious or unconscious in
Leonardo’s creation of the painting is uncertain, but there
is no question that he created mathematical order out of
the drama of this moment and that he emphasized the
impact of the revelation of betrayal on the inner lives of the
apostles by representing their reactions within an underly-
ing numerical system. The two preliminary drawings reveal
how Leonardo moved from an approach that emphasized
variety to one that imposed mathematical order. In both of
the preliminary drawings he showed John the Evangelist
isolated, his head down on the table, as in Castagno’s
version of this subject (see fig. 11.12), but in the painting
he united the figure with the other apostles.

THE ORIGINS OF THE HIGH RENAISSANCE

459

16.23. LEONARDO DA VINCI. Last Supper. 1495-97/98.
Tempera and oil on prepared wall, 13'9" x 29T0" (4.2 x9.1m).
Refectory of Sta. Maria delle Grazie, Milan. Commissioned by
Ludovico Sforza.

The lunettes above the painting have the coats of arms of Ludovico
Sforza and his family surrounded by wreaths of fruit and leaves so
subtly rendered that they were probably painted by Leonardo himself.

In other preliminary sketches, Leonardo labeled each
apostle, and in one of his manuscripts he described their
respective attitudes and emotions. He later studied each
from live models, some of whose names are known. Many
drawings are preserved, including a study of a youth in red
chalk that was used for the head of St. James Major in the
painting (see fig. 16.9). In the drawing the figure recoils as
from a blow, his eyes staring, his mouth open; in the paint-
ing, he sinks back between St. Thomas, with his pointing,
probing finger, and St. Philip, whose love for Christ seems
evident in his expression, as the hands pressed to his chest
protest that he is not the betrayer. Judas is the only apostle

who need not protest; he knows. He is the only apostle
who reaches for food, implying that he will receive the
sacrament unworthily. He is also the only one to recoil
from Christ and the only one whose face is not in the light.
His dark bulk is contrasted in the same group with the
lighted profile of St. Peter and the face of St. John, whom,
in defiance of tradition, Leonardo placed at Christ’s right.
Christ turns from Judas, and the resigned expression on his
face suggests his words in the Gospels, “And the Son of
man indeed goeth ... but woe to that man by whom the
Son of man shall be betrayed” (Luke 22:21, 22). When
Judas jerks away from Christ, he knocks over the salt
cellar, an act that popular superstition suggests will bring
about bad luck; since Christ uses salt as a metaphor for the
apostles (“You are the salt of the earth,” Matthew 5:13),
this spilling of the salt has also been interpreted by Jack
Wasserman as a reference to the fact that Judas’ betrayal
has shattered the fellowship of Christ’s beloved followers.

We can catch an echo of the surface quality of the orig-
inal painting in the pewter plates, the freshly unfolded

460

THE CINQUECENTO

16.24. Detail of fig. 16.23.

tablecloth with its woven pattern, the wineglasses, and the
rolls set upon the table. Careful study of the meal offered
to the apostles reveals, surprisingly, not the Paschal lamb
that would be expected at Passover, but whole fish and
sliced grilled eel served with orange slices. Perhaps these
were chosen as vehicles for Leonardo to demonstrate his
skill. In the painting of the figures, every silken curl, every
passage of flesh must once have been virtually perfect.
Leonardo’s forms have lost their definition but not their
impact, his space its precision but not its depth. Even in
its ruined state, the psychological effect of the painting
is overwhelming (fig 16.24).

Leonardo took in the Last Supper a step as definitive as
that of Donatello nearly eighty years earlier in the St.
George and the Dragon relief (see fig. 7.14), but in a dif-
ferent direction: he broke with the Quattrocento tradition
that culminated in the illusionistic systems of Mantegna
and Melozzo, in which represented space is an extension of
the room in which the spectator stands. Although
Leonardo’s perspective is consistent, the vanishing point is
so high that there is no place in the refectory where spec-
tators can stand with their eyes on the same level (fig 16.25).

16.25. Refectory of Sta. Maria delle Grazie, Milan, with a view of
Leonardo’s Last Supper.

THE ORIGINS OF THE HIGH RENAISSANCE * 4 6 I

16.26. GIOVANNI PIETRO DA BIRAGO (attributed to). Last Supper, after Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1500. Engraving, 9Vi6 x 17 3 /4" (23 x 45 cm).
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The dog shown in the lower right is not found in Leonardo’s composition.

Thus the walls of the upper chamber in Jerusalem cannot
be read as continuations of the real walls of the refectory,
and the Albertian role of the picture as a vertical intersec-
tion through the visual pyramid (see fig. 6.6) has been
abandoned. Within this perspective demonstration, larger-
than-life human beings act on a grander plane, above our
experience. Ideal masses inhabit an ideal space to expound
an idea, replacing the delight of the Quattrocento in visual
reality and vivid anecdote. We are now truly in the High
Renaissance, which is Leonardo’s single-handed creation;
it will be adopted later by Michelangelo, Fra Bartolom-
meo, Raphael, and Andrea del Sarto.

Leonardo’s Last Supper became known not through
visits to the monks’ refectory, but through widely distrib-
uted prints that preserved its design and details but little of
the subtlety of the original. The example reproduced here
(fig. 16.26), attributed to Giovanni Pietro da Birago (d.
1513), is the earliest reproductive print made after a
Renaissance painting. The fact that it was produced almost
immediately after the painting was finished suggests the
importance assigned to Leonardo’s Last Supper at that
time. Several other early engravings of Leonardo’s painting
were actually copies of this print and not of the painting
itself. The engraving gives no hint of the delicacy of
Leonardo’s shadows or of his ability to represent the
surface and texture of living and inanimate things. The fact

that the print preserves the feet of the figures, however,
helps us to re-create the now-lost foundation that
Leonardo originally provided for his composition, while its
sharp detail brings the rather misty masterpiece that we
view today into sharper focus.

We must be careful not to expect complete accuracy in
such reproductive works, however, for the engraver also
added details to Leonardo’s composition, including the
houses seen through the left window and the dog at the far
right. The inscription added to the print says “...one of
you shall betray me” (Matthew 26:21). Another copy of
the painting, executed in the expensive medium of tapestry,
was commissioned by King Francis I of France as a gift to
Pope Clement VII; now in the Vatican Museums, it
replaces Leonardo’s simple background with elaborate
architectural and landscape details.

LEONARDO 1499-1519. It is noteworthy that the
new, grand vision of an ideal world in Leonardo’s painting
was expressed at the moment when the political situation
in Italy was recognized as hopeless. After the French inva-
sion and the Battle of the Taro in 1495, it was clear that no
matter who claimed victory in that disastrous encounter,
Italy was divided. The peninsula would remain largely
impotent in the face of the monarchies of Western Europe
until the nineteenth century. Despite the appeals of

462

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Machiavelli and others, it was only a matter of time before
the Italian states — with the exception of the Genoese and
Venetian republics — were overwhelmed by the forces of
foreign tyranny. Florence and the papacy, however, main-
tained a shadowy independence. High Renaissance art in
Florence and Rome can be understood as representing a
kind of human grandeur and power that Italians seemed to
have known was doomed in real life. It is a valiant effort,
and there is often something dreamlike about its noble and
ideal productions as compared with the pedestrian solidity
of earlier Quattrocento images.

Except for a second stay in Milan from 1508 to 1513,
Leonardo traveled frequently between 1499 and 1517.
Records show that he returned to Florence and Rome
repeatedly, stayed in Venice and Parma, and traveled with
the army of Cesare Borgia. Many of the artist’s engineering
and cartographic experiments date from this period.

In 1501 Fra Pietro da Novellara, acting as an agent for
Isabella d’Este, wrote to the marchioness from Florence
about a cartoon that Leonardo had made: “depicting a
Christ Child about one year old who, almost slipping from
his mother’s arms, grasps a lamb and seems to hug it. The
mother, half rising from the lap of St. Anne, takes the Child
as though to separate him from the lamb, which signifies
the Passion. St. Anne, also appearing to rise from a sitting
position, seems to wish to keep her daughter from sepa-
rating the Child and the lamb, and perhaps is intended to
represent the Church, which does not wish the Passion of
Christ to be impeded. And these figures are life-sized, but
they are in a small cartoon, because they are all either
seated, or bending over, and one is placed in front of another,
moving toward the left, and this study is not yet finished.”
It is not certain that Leonardo would have intended all the
symbolism that Fra Pietro finds in his work, but no matter
how foreign it is to the way many of us would approach
Leonardo’s painting today, Fra Pietro’s emphasis on
complex symbolism is an important document that reveals
how a painting could be received by a contemporary viewer.

Leonardo’s cartoon, exhibited at the monastery of San-
tissima Annunziata in Florence, was a proposal for an
altarpiece for the church. The cartoon is lost, but its com-
position is known from a surviving sketch. It excited admi-
ration and influenced Florentine artists, especially Fra
Bartolommeo, the young Michelangelo, and the still
younger Raphael. They must have been impressed by those
very qualities that Fra Pietro emphasized: the overlapping
that enabled the artist to fit three life-sized figures into a
small cartoon. But the general public also thronged to see
it, probably because in April 1501 they were praying for
the intervention of St. Anne, traditionally a protector of
the Florentine Republic, against the threat of Cesare
Borgia’s armies.

Leonardo experimented with a similar composition of
intertwined figures in another cartoon, this one surviving,
the Virgin and Child with Sts . Anne and John the Baptist
(fig. 16.27). Mary, seated on her mother’s lap, holds the
Child, who blesses his cousin John. Anne’s and Mary’s
knees and legs — two lowered, two raised — provides a
foundation for the glances above: Anne looking at Mary,
Mary at Christ, and Christ at John, who gazes back in
response. While the composition unifies the figures, it is
these expressions that hold the viewer’s attention: it is hard
to imagine more tender and loving glances than those that

16.27. LEONARDO DA VINCI. Virgin and Child with Sts. Anne
and John the Baptist (the “Burlington House Cartoon”), c. 1505-7.
Black chalk and touches of white chalk on brownish paper, mounted
on canvas on tinted paper, 4'7 3 /4" x 3 '5 V 4 1 ’, 141.5 x 104.6 cm).
National Gallery, London.

Famous or controversial works of art sometimes become the victims
of attacks. In 1986 a man smuggled a gun into the National Gallery
and shot this cartoon through its protective cover but he fortunately
missed the faces and other essential areas of the work.

THE ORIGINS OF THE HIGH RENAISSANCE * 463

pass from grandmother to mother to child. Leonardo
blurred the forms somewhat, leaving them without the
exact definition that would make these expressions fixed
and less suggestive. The inclusion of John the Baptist sug-
gests that Leonardo prepared the cartoon for a Florentine
patron. The powerful sculptural quality of the mono-
chrome figures suggests the influence of Michelangelo. The
delicacy of Leonardo’s technique is evident in the faces,
where he has imperceptibly blended charcoal and black
and white chalk to create the effect of light caressing flesh
and merging into deep shadow. The subtlety of the three-
dimensional forms is in sharp contrast to the hair, which is
only quickly sketched in.

Another variation on this compositional and expressive
theme is the Madonna and Child with St. Anne (fig.
16.28), one of three paintings — the others are the Mona
Lisa (see fig. 16.29) and a bust-length figure of St John the
Baptist (not illustrated) — that Leonardo took to France
and kept with him until his death; all three are today
in the Louvre Museum in Paris. If the Last Supper is the
first High Renaissance wall painting, then the Madonna
and Child with St. Anne is the first example of the new
principles of unity, scale, and compression in panel paint-
ing. Here the tendency toward a living, moving pyramid
that began with Pollaiuolo’s St. Sebastian (see fig. 13.7)
reaches its climax. The pyramidal composition is an essen-
tial of classical art; although Leonardo could not have
known it, the same principle is exemplified in the pedi-
mental sculptures of the Parthenon. For Leonardo the
activating principle of his classical composition was
motion, which in his writings appears to be at the heart
of his universe.

The relatively unmodeled appearance of the Virgin’s face
is due to overcleaning; the highlights and soft shadows
have been rubbed off, and here and there the underdraw-
ing shows through the surface of the cheeks and neck. The
Virgin’s blue mantle has also apparently lost some of
its color. But much of Leonardo’s surface is nearly intact,
and in the other drapery and the face of St. Anne, as well
as in the foreground, with its rocky layers and rounded
pebbles, we see Leonardo’s use of sfumato to unite the
painting. Sfumato (“smokelike”) describes the subtle
transitions of Leonardo’s modeling as he blurred the
edges of forms and modulated from highlight into deep
shadow. Throughout the painting, the enameled brilliance
of late Quattrocento coloring has been replaced by a
new, subdued tonality. The figural pyramid divides the
mountain landscape. This is not a poetic portrait of
a natural landscape like those of Giovanni Bellini (see figs.
15.39-15.40), which evoke the mood of a time and place,
any more than Leonardo’s perspective can be related to
a specific moment of vision: it is a composite of observa-

tions and memories collected in Leonardo’s Alpine wan-
derings. The fantastic peaks recall the Dolomites above
Belluno so accurately that they make the rocky pinnacles
of Leonardo’s earlier backgrounds seem mere inventions.
Escarpments, crags, lakes, rivers, and cascades recede and
blend into the distance.

The identity of the sitter in Leonardo’s Mona Lisa (fig.
16.29) is still debated. According to Vasari, she was Lisa di
Antonio Maria Gherardini, the wife of the prominent Flo-
rentine Francesco del Giocondo (“Mona” is a term of
respect, a shortened version of the Italian phrase equiva-
lent to “my lady”). An earlier source did not mention this
identification, reporting only that the painting had been
made for Giuliano de’ Medici. Vasari also wrote that
Leonardo worked on the painting for three full years.

In the Mona Lisa Leonardo treated the single figure
much as he had the compact group in the Madonna and
Child with St. Anne. Earlier full-face or three-quarter por-
traits such as Botticelli’s Portrait of a Man (see fig. 13.26)
and Perugino’s Francesco delle Opere (see fig. 14.20) con-
centrated on the head and shoulders, cutting the body at
mid-chest and raising the hands so they are visible within
the frame. Even Leonardo’s own Ginevra de 3 Benci (see fig.
16.14) conformed to this principle before it was truncated.
In the Mona Lisa , Leonardo continued the figure well
below the waist, and both arms are complete. The hands,
utterly relaxed, complete in their unity the spiral turn of
the torso and head.

It can be argued that, by including so much of the figure,
Leonardo was implying a full-length portrait and suggest-
ing that the whole person is represented here. This new
format invented by Leonardo became popular in Italian
and Northern European portraiture and continued
through the nineteenth century and into the twentieth. The
subject looks larger and grander than in Quattrocento por-
traits, in keeping with the new dignity and monumentality
of the High Renaissance. The composition, like so many
other High Renaissance works, is based on the pyramid.
The effect of stability would have been greater before the
panel was cut down on both sides, eliminating colonnettes
that framed the figure (the base of the colonnettes is still
visible on the balustrade to either side).

The calm hint of a smile, about which so much has been
written, and the composure of the hands were characteris-
tic for a generation whose standards are summed up in the
untranslatable word sprezzatura. This term was coined by
Baldassare Castiglione (see fig. 17.55) in his Book of the
Courtier , a guidebook to aristocratic behavior written
between 1508 and 1528. The Mona Lisa’s calm assurance
and the ease with which she seems to confront the viewer
express Castiglione’s requirement that one’s behavior in
public should seem effortless and natural, even in difficult

464

THE CINQUECENTO

16.28. LEONARDO DA VINCI. Madonna and Child with St. Anne . c. 1 508-13 (?). Panel, 5'6V4 W x 4'3 1 /4"
(1.7 x 1.3 m). The Louvre, Paris.

Faint drawings of a horse’s head, part of a skull, and Jesus playing with a lamb were recently discovered on the
back of the wooden panel; whether they are by Leonardo remains to be determined.

THE ORIGINS OF THE HIGH RENAISSANCE

465

16.29. LEONARDO DA VINCI.
Mona Lisa . 1503. Panel, 30 V 4 x 21 11
(77 x 53 cm). The Louvre, Paris.
Vasari's description suggests qualities
no longer evident in the darkened
original: “The nose, with its beautiful
nostrils, rosy and tender, seemed to
be alive. The opening of the mouth,
united by the red of the lips to the flesh
tones of the face, seemed not to be
colored but to be living flesh.” Vasari
had almost certainly not seen the
painting, so his comments must have
been based on what others had told
him about it.

social situations. But Castiglione’s book was directed
toward behavior at court, and it is remarkable that here we
see sprezzatura expressed by a woman. Renaissance books
of etiquette had previously stressed that a woman should
never look directly into a man’s eyes, and one aspect of the
painting’s fame is surely the manner in which this woman
challenges traditional cultural assumptions about appro-

priate female behavior by suggesting that her ability to
confront us is effortless and even pleasing to her. The fact
that she wears none of the jewelry that we find in most
earlier and contemporary female portraits (see figs. 13.9,
16.50) and that there is no indication of the status of
her family supports the suggestion that Leonardo’s intent
was to emphasize the sitter as an individual, not as a

466 • THE CINQUECENTO

showcase for her husband’s or her family’s wealth and
social standing.

The Mona Lisa has evoked a flood of scholarship and
popular literature. Whether or not Freud was correct in his
interpretation of Leonardo’s character, abundant evidence
suggests that his feelings toward women were ambivalent
and it seems unlikely that the sitter exercised a romantic
attraction over the artist. One of the more fantastic twen-
tieth-century interpretations suggested that the painting is
actually a self-portrait of Leonardo dressed as a woman,
but no firm evidence supported this assertion beyond the
notion that every artistic creation is in some way an
expression of the personality of the artist.

We should not attempt to dissociate the person from the
surrounding landscape; motif after motif is continuous in
figure and background. The locks of hair falling over her
right shoulder blend with rocky outcroppings through
which a road winds; the folds of the scarf over the left
shoulder are continued in the line of a distant bridge. The
nature that she dominates is the same world of roads,
rocks, mists, and seas that Leonardo began using for back-
grounds beginning with his contribution to Verrocchio’s
Baptism of Christ (see figs. 13.12, 16.11); devoid of
humans or animals, habitations, farms, fields, or even
trees, it is capped by Dolomitic crags like those in the
Madonna and Child with St. Anne . The only human con-
structions, the roads and the bridge, lead to indistinguish-
able waters and unscalable rocks. Most subtle of all is the
placing of the highest level of mist so that it accentuates the
expression of the eyes, while a sense of unease is caused by
the fact that the two sides of the landscape seem to have
different horizons. The painting is obscured with layers of
darkened, yellowish varnish, so that the color is uninten-
tionally muted; because such glazes were almost certainly
part of Leonardo’s original technique, restorers have been
reluctant to tackle this famous painting.

In 1503 Leonardo was commissioned by the Florentine
Republic under Piero Soderini to paint the Battle of
Anghiari for the Palazzo dei Priori. Leonardo’s picture was
intended to commemorate the 1440 victory of the Floren-
tines over the forces of the Milanese duke Filippo Maria
Visconti. In a period when the republic still had to face the
forces of Cesare Borgia, it is understandable that the gov-
ernment would wish to make reference to this historic
triumph over an old enemy on the walls of the Sala del
Cinquecento (Hall of the Five Hundred), which had been
added to the Palazzo dei Priori to accommodate
the Council of Five Hundred that ruled the new republic.
The original republican decorations also included the
Battle of Cascina by Michelangelo (see fig. 16.42), com-
missioned a year later, on the same wall or the opposite
side of the room.

Apparently, Leonardo painted only the central section of
the battle scene; for the remainder, perhaps separated by
windows from the center we have only vivid sketches. The
work was executed in another of Leonardo’s experimental
techniques, but the exact formula is uncertain. He aban-
doned the painting in 1506 when he returned to Milan,
and what remained of it was apparently cleared away in
1557 by Vasari to make way for his murals glorifying the
Medici rule of Grand Duke Cosimo I. Even during the
brief period when the painting or sections of the cartoon
survived, however, the potency of Leonardo’s invention
was so compelling that it fundamentally changed the
whole idea of battle painting.

The effect of Leonardo’s lost painting is preserved in a
drawing by the seventeenth-century Flemish painter Peter
Paul Rubens (fig. 16.30). Although Rubens had seen only
copies of the painting, which disappeared before he was
born, he re-created something of the dynamism of the orig-
inal through the power of his own imagination.

The central scene depicted the contest of four horsemen
for the possession of the standard of the republic.
Leonardo wrote in his notebooks that the superiority of
painting over poetry was evident in the immediacy with
which the painter could represent the smoke rising from
the battlefield, the dust of the ground mingled with blood
and turning into red mud under the hooves of the horses,
the faces of the victors distorted by rage and exultation
and those of the vanquished by pain and despair. To
achieve this level of struggle, Leonardo converted the

16.30. PETER PAUL RUBENS. Battle of Anghiari, partial copy
after LEONARDO DA VINCI, c. 1615. Pen and ink and chalk,
17 3 /4 x 25 V 4 " (45 x 64 cm). The Louvre, Paris. Leonardo’s ori ginal
(now lost) was commissioned by the Florentine Republic.

THE ORIGINS OF THE HIGH RENAISSANCE

467

16.31. LEONARDO DA VINCI. Two
Sheets of Battle Studies, c. 1503. Pen and ink,
each approx. 6x6" (15.2 x 15.2 cm).
Accademia, Venice.

horses and riders, whose ancestors we have seen in his
Adoration of the Magi and Sforza monument (see figs.
16.16, 16.20), into a tornado of intertwined figures. The
unified High Renaissance figural composition here reaches
an intensity so great that we are torn between the fascina-
tion of watching the beautiful interplay of rhythmic ele-
ments — the streaming manes and tails, for example — and
the urge to turn in fear from the snarling ferocity of the
horses, who almost outdo the riders in violence. Their
hooves interlock and they fight with their teeth while the
riders’ swords clash in midair and the horses crush fallen
warriors below. Additional encounters planned for the
remaining spaces cover many sheets of Leonardo’s sketch-
books (fig. 16.31).

To the consternation of his contemporaries, Leonardo
painted little or not at all during the last ten years of his
life. He returned to Milan in 1506, where he was occupied
for a while in the design of an equestrian monument for
Giangiacomo Trivulzio, marshal of the Italian armies of
King Louis XII of France. He was appointed peintre et
ingenieur ordinaire (painter and engineer) to the king, a
position that apparently involved little work and gave the
artist a handsome stipend. Except for a brief sojourn in
Florence in 1508, he remained in Milan, largely occupied
with his anatomical studies, until 1513, when he went to
Rome at the invitation of Pope Leo X. The Roman phase
of the High Renaissance had largely passed, with
Michelangelo’s Sistine Ceiling and Raphael’s first two
Vatican stanze already complete. Leonardo was given a
suite of rooms in the Vatican Belvedere. One of his noted
accomplishments of this period was a pair of lizard-skin
wings mounted on golden wires and attached to a tiny
corset around the waist of a live lizard, which could thus
march about like a little dragon, displaying its wings in the
sunlight. The grandiosity of Michelangelo, then working in
seclusion on the statues for the second version of the tomb
of Julius II, can have held little appeal for Leonardo, and
there is no record that Leo X entrusted him with any spe-
cific commission.

In 1517 Leonardo accepted the invitation of King
Francis I of France to spend his remaining years at the
chateau of Cloux, near Amboise, where his only duty was
to talk to the king. According to accounts by contempo-
rary witnesses, his conversation radiated his immense
learning and imagination, but of his artistic activity little is
known. Among the works attributed to these years are
more drawings of water, as in figure 16.32; now the waters
are unchained, descending destructively upon the earth.
Leonardo claimed that water was more dreadful than fire,
which dies when it has consumed that which feeds it, while
a river in flood continues its destructive course until it rests
at last in the sea:

468

THE CINQUECENTO

16.32. LEONARDO DA VINCI. Deluge .
c. 1514-19. Black chalk, 6 V 4 x 8 V 4 "

(16 x 21 cm). The Royal Collection
© 2005, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth H.

But in what terms am I to describe the abominable and awful
evils against which no human resource avails? Which lay
waste the high mountains with their swelling and exalted
waves, cast down the strongest banks, tear up the deep-
rooted trees, and with ravening waves laden with mud from
crossing the ploughed fields carry with them the unendurable
labors of the wretched tillers of the soil.

Here, the water engulfs barely visible human construc-
tions and assumes spiral shapes expressive of Leonardo’s
reverence for nature’s power.

Leonardo died in France in 1519, and although Vasari’s
story that he died in the arms of King Francis I is probably
apocryphal, the king was Leonardo’s good friend as well as
his employer.

Michelangelo to 1505

When Leonardo abandoned Florence for Milan in the early
1480s, Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) was still a
boy. His earliest years were spent outside the city in Settig-
nano, near the stone quarries. By the time Leonardo
returned to Florence in 1500, the young sculptor was a for-
midable competitor to him in the art of painting as well.
Michelangelo dominated the sixteenth century to such a
degree that it was virtually impossible for artists to escape
his influence.

Michelangelo’s character and stylistic approach place
him in opposition to Leonardo. Where Leonardo was
skeptical, Michelangelo believed. Where Leonardo was

apolitical, Michelangelo was a loyal Florentine. Where
Leonardo looked on the world and humanity with detach-
ment, Michelangelo was obsessed by guilt. Where
Leonardo was intellectually and physically charming but
seems to have cared little for those he attracted, Michelan-
gelo was spare, taciturn, and irascible, yet consumed with
a deep love for others that only in his old age was requited
by the adoring reverence of his pupils. Where Leonardo
was absorbed in the mysteries of nature, of which the
human being was only a single facet, Michelangelo scorned
landscape, which appears in his art only occasionally as a
fragment of rock or a tree blasted by lightning. Where
Leonardo considered the eye the window through which
the soul assesses the physical world, Michelangelo in his
writings extolled the eye’s spheroid beauty or shrank from
the emotional effect of spiritual radiance from the eyes of
those he loved. Throughout the seventy-five years of
Michelangelo’s artistic production, his main interest was in
the life of the human soul as expressed in the structure and
movements of the human body.

Michelangelo was born in a barren region of the Apen-
nines, in the village of Caprese. His father, an impover-
ished but pretentious gentleman named Lodovico di
Simone Buonarroti, was governor (podesta) of this Floren-
tine outpost. Before Michelangelo was a month old,
Lodovico’s one-year term came to an end, and the family
returned to Florence, but even in his old age the artist
attached special importance to having been born in the rar-
efied air of this mountain town. He was given to a wet
nurse who lived on a small family property at Settignano,

THE ORIGINS OF THE HIGH RENAISSANCE * 469

a village of stonecutters that had been the home of Deside-
rio da Settignano and the Rossellino family. It is difficult to
resist the temptation of drawing a connection between his
statement that he drank in a love of stonecutters’ tools
with his wet nurse’s milk and his fondness for representing
the theme of the Virgin nursing the Christ Child.

In 1549, when Michelangelo was already old, he was
subjected to a series of questions circulated by the human-
ist Benedetto Varchi on the relative merits of painting and
sculpture. We already know that Leonardo, who was long
dead, would have argued the superiority of painting.
Michelangelo’s reply stated:

The nearer painting approaches relief the better it is, and that
relief is worse the nearer it approaches painting. Therefore it
has always seemed to me that sculpture was a lantern to
painting and that the difference between them is that
between the sun and the moon.

By sculpture Michelangelo went on to explain that he
meant works that are produced “by force of taking away
[that is, by carving]; sculpture that is done by adding
on [that is, by building a figure in clay] resembles paint-
ing.” Michelangelo concluded that “Sculpture and paint-
ing [should] make peace ... and leave such disputes behind,
for more time goes into them than into the making
of figures.” At the age of seventy-three, Michelangelo
was more interested in making art than in engaging in
philosophical debate.

Michelangelo’s desire to become an artist was opposed
by his family, especially his father and uncle. As descen-
dants of the counts of Canossa, these brothers fancied
themselves and their families to be above mechanical labor.
Eventually, they yielded and placed the boy in
Ghirlandaio’s studio in 1488, at the age of thirteen. He
must have been skillful already, for he drew a salary
instead of having his father pay for an apprenticeship. He
could have found no better teacher from whom to absorb
the traditions and techniques of the Quattrocento. In many
areas of the Sistine Ceiling one still feels the solidity of
Ghirlandaio’s form and spatial structure, and in the 1530s,
when he was occupied with the Last Judgment (see fig.
20.1), Michelangelo expressed his disinterest in painting in
oil, preferring the traditional Tuscan fresco technique that
he had learned in Ghirlandaio’s workshop. In none of his
paintings does he employ the soft shadows used by
Leonardo, insisting always on the clarity of form charac-
teristic of the Florentine tradition.

Michelangelo may well have taken part in the execution
of Ghirlandaio’s fresco cycle in the chancel of Santa Maria
Novella (see figs. 13.38-13.39), although Ghirlandaio’s
control over the workshop and his style in the cycle is so

i W

k p I

i\ s?

16.33. MICHELANGELO. Madonna of the Stairs. 1489-92.
Marble, 21 3 /4 x 15 3 /4" (55.3 x 40 cm). Casa Buonarroti, Florence.

consistent that it is impossible to identify figures or pas-
sages by his thirteen-year-old assistant. After barely a year
with Ghirlandaio, Michelangelo was invited into the house
of Lorenzo the Magnificent, where he stayed and worked
in a kind of art school held in the now-vanished Medici
gardens, opposite the church of San Marco. At Palazzo
Medici he would have been able to study works of ancient
art including marble sculpture, cameos, and coins as well
as Renaissance paintings and sculpture. He was under the
tutelage of Bertoldo di Giovanni, a sculptor who had been
Donatello’s assistant. In expeditions to Santa Croce and
the Carmine, he made drawings after the frescoes of Giotto
and Masaccio. It was in the Brancacci Chapel that
Michelangelo’s criticism of a drawing by the sculptor
Pietro Torrigiani earned him the blow that broke his nose,
disfiguring him for life.

At Lorenzo’s table, whoever arrived first sat closest to II
Magnifico; Michelangelo must sometimes have found
himself sitting next to him or near one of his three sons:

470

THE CINQUECENTO

Piero the Unlucky, who became Lorenzo’s successor; Giu-
liano, who later became the ruler of Florence; and Gio-
vanni, later Pope Leo X. Other guests might have included
the Neo-Platonic philosophers who were part of Lorenzo’s
circle. There must have been a heady atmosphere of polit-
ical power and intellectual performance, especially for
Michelangelo, who seems to have learned only a few
phrases of Latin.

EARLY WORKS. The artist’s earliest extant work, a
small marble relief known as the Madonna of the Stairs
(fig. 16.33), probably dates from these years; it was influ-
enced by both the rilievo schiacciato of Donatello (see fig.
7.14) and, probably, one or more of the ancient reliefs,
cameos, and coins then in the Medici collections. For the
only time in the work of Michelangelo, we are not exactly
sure what forms exist under the shimmering drapery that
covers the Virgin’s limbs (it was later said that his figures

were nude even when clothed). But the back and right arm
of the Christ Child are extraordinary, surpassing Early
Renaissance sculptures in their muscular power. Michelan-
gelo reused this same back many years later in the figure of
Day in the Medici Chapel (see fig. 18.5). As in earlier
works, the Madonna seems to be meditating on Christ’s
Passion, while the stairs may refer to Mary’s symbolic role
as a stairway to heaven. The angels in the background are
wingless, as is almost always the case in Michelangelo’s
work. These figures are unfinished, their heads scarcely
more than blocks. Already in the sculptor’s adolescence,
we sense a hint of the artistic paralysis that sometimes pre-
vented him from finishing his works.

Also from the Medici period is the Battle ofLapiths and
Centaurs (fig. 16.34), its powerful movement in sharp con-
trast with the quiet introspection of the Madonna of the
Stairs . The two opposing strains demonstrated in these
early works coexisted in Michelangelo’s nature, and the

16.34. MICHELANGELO. Battle ofLapiths and Centaurs . c. 1492. Marble, 33V4 x 35V8 M (84.5 x 89.2 cm). Casa Buonarroti, Florence.

THE ORIGINS OF THE HIGH RENAISSANCE

47 1

dichotomy between them may be witnessed again and
again, sometimes within the same work. This composition
of high-relief intertwined figures was inspired by
Michelangelo’s study of ancient Roman battle sarcopaghi.
The viciousness and mayhem found in Ovid’s ancient
account of the fight between the Lapiths and the centaurs,
who became drunk and attempted to carry off the Lapith
women at a wedding feast, is not emphasized here. No
blow connects with its intended victim, no stone strikes
a human head, no club disfigures a human body. Occa-
sionally, in this vibrant interlace of struggling figures, two
actually wrestle, but this is as far as the artist went in
depicting brutality.

With his characteristic abhorrence of the monstrous —
indeed of any violence done to the human body —
Michelangelo has so subordinated the lower bodies of the
centaurs that they are difficult to make out. The nudes are
unfinished, and some heads are so rough they can hardly
be distinguished from the rocks wielded by the centaurs.
The Battle of Lapiths and Centaurs is among the most
advanced figural compositions of its time, but its figural
interlace does not, as in Pollaiuolo and Leonardo, con-
struct a unifying geometric shape. If the Madonna of the
Stairs is the predecessor of the sibyls of the Sistine Chapel
(see fig. 17.36) and the Medici Madonna (see fig. 18.7), the
figures in the Battle of Lapiths and Centaurs are progeni-
tors of the herculean nudes of the Battle of Cascina (see fig.
16.42) and the Last Judgment (see fig. 20.1).

With the death of Lorenzo de’ Medici in 1492, however,
this episode in Michelangelo’s life was over, and the boy
found himself back in the modest house of his father in the
street that follows the curves of the old Roman arena near
Santa Croce. Some sources claim that Piero the Unlucky
called Michelangelo back to the Palazzo Medici for a few
months but the only work he produced there was a figure
sculpted from snow for the palace courtyard; no drawing
or other evidence for this figure survives.

Many scholars accept a wooden Crucifix (fig. 16.35) as
the documented one that Michelangelo made for Santo
Spirito in 1492. In contrast to the vigor of the figures in the
battle relief, the body of the crucified Christ has an unex-
pected elegance of proportions and a graceful pose. The
figure’s nudity is in keeping with the artist’s reverence for
the human body, and he repeatedly depicted Christ as glo-
riously nude as any mythological Greek hero. (When the
sculpture was used for public devotion, a fabric loincloth
was added that would have heightened the naturalistic
effect of the polychromed figure.) This is the only work in
wood we know by Michelangelo, and the sculptor is
reported to have carved it in gratitude for the prior’s per-
mission to dissect corpses in the hospital of Santo Spirito.
Unlike Leonardo’s anatomical studies, which emphasized

16.35. MICHELANGELO. Crucifix . 1492. Painted wood, height
4'5" (1.35 m). Sto. Spirito, Florence.

the body’s physiology, Michelangelo’s investigations were
geared toward understanding gestures and movements and
how they could express spiritual life. Like Leonardo, he
dissected corpses well into his advanced years and hoped
to author a treatise on anatomy for artists.

Michelangelo’s brief visit to Venice in 1494 seems to
have had little effect on either guest or host city, but during
his stay in Bologna during the winter of 1494-95 he exe-
cuted three statuettes to complete the tomb of St. Dominic.
He also came into contact with the works of Jacopo della
Quercia (see figs. 7.23-7.24), with their emphasis on the
power and dignity of the human body, whether heroically
nude or enveloped by surging waves of drapery. Jacopo’s
influence on Michelangelo’s style played an important role
in the formation of some of the images on the Sistine
Ceiling. Also, although its connection with specific works
has never been successfully demonstrated, Savonarola’s
preaching may well have affected the young artist (see
p. 342). In his old age Michelangelo still read Savonarola’s
works and remembered the sound of his voice.

472

THE CINQUECENTO

Although the Rome of 1496, dominated by the corrupt
Borgia pope Alexander VI, may have afforded little spiri-
tual inspiration for the twenty-one-year-old artist, it did
provide contact with more examples of ancient Roman
architecture, sculpture, and painting than were available in
Florence. Their influence upon Michelangelo’s art is incal-
culable. In the Bacchus (fig. 16.36), made for a rich
Roman, Michelangelo explored human flesh in a manner
unprecedented since antiquity. The sensuality of ancient
models such as the Apollo Belvedere (see fig 1.5) fascinated

16.36. MICHELANGELO. Bacchus . 1496-97. Marble, height
6'7V2" (2 m). Bargello, Florence. Probably commissioned by
Cardinal Raffaele Riario, but in the early 1530s the work was visible
in the garden of Jacopo Galli. Michelangelo was paid 160 florins for
his work.

the young Florentine, but he infused the Bacchus with a
new realism. Nude and wreathed with vine leaves and
bunches of grapes, the god of wine is shown deeply
affected by alcohol: his eyes seem glazed and he lurches
unsteadily. His muscles are no longer firm and his
abdomen sags. The grapes that fall from his panther skin
are coveted by a boy satyr. The flat surfaces of the marble
block are still evident in the relief-like character of the
satyr and the grapes, in contrast to the fullness and rich-
ness of the main figure.

THE PIET A. In 1498 Michelangelo, then twenty-three,
accepted a commission for what became one of his most
famous works, the Pietd (figs. 16.37-16.38). The subject,
common in French and German Gothic sculpture but vir-
tually unknown in Italy, was ordered by a French cardinal
to decorate his tomb. To obtain marble of the highest
quality, the sculptor made the first of many trips to the
quarries at Carrara (see fig. 1.18). It was designed to be
placed on or near the floor, so that the viewer had a clear
view of the face of Christ. (It is now raised too high, has
been tilted forward by a prop of cement at the back, and is
enshrined against a background of opulent marble.)

The delicate slenderness of the figure of Christ can be
compared to that of the wooden Crucifix. The complex
rhythms of the drapery and Christ’s exquisitely finished
torso and limbs of Christ reveal a high level of refinement
and delicacy. At certain points lines seem to cut into the
marble surface, setting up a conflict between form and
contour that was to persist for several years in Michelan-
gelo’s style. This is especially evident in the features of
Christ and Mary; the delicate curls of Christ’s moustache
and beard, for example, are incised into the marble.

The serenity of Michelangelo’s interpretation of this
inherently tragic scene is engendered in part by the unified
High Renaissance composition he developed, based on a
reversal of natural figural proportions. So that Christ will
not overwhelm Mary, she is larger in scale than he. No
trace of pain remains in his face, and his wounds are barely
noticeable. With a single, calm gesture, the Virgin invites
us to meditate on the meaning of Christ’s death.

In Michelangelo’s lifetime there was speculation about
the discrepancy between Mary’s apparent age here and her
actual years: she should be about eighteen years older than
her son, who was thirty-three at the time of his death, but
the artist has made her look no older than Christ. When
asked about this by his fellow sculptor Ascanio Condivi,
Michelangelo answered: “Do you not know that chaste
women stay fresh much more than those who are not
chaste? How much more in the case of the Virgin, who had
never experienced the least lascivious desire that might
change her body?”

THE ORIGINS OF THE HIGH RENAISSANCE

4 7 3

16.37. MICHELANGELO. Pieta. 1498/99-1500. Marble,
height 5 ’ 8 V 2 11 (1.74 m). St. Peter’s, Vatican, Rome. Commissioned
by the French Cardinal Jean de Bilheres Lagraulas for the chapel
where he planned to be buried in Santa Pctronilla, a mausoleum
attached to Old St. Peter’s.

Vasari recorded that when the group was first placed in
St. Peter's, an astonished crowd of Lombards thought it
was by a fellow countryman, whereupon Michelangelo
stole into St. Peter’s at night and added his signature:
MICHELANGELUS BUONAROTLS FLORENT FACIE-
BAT. The signature is unusual, for the traditional format
would have used “fecit” (made) rather than “faciebat,” the
past progressive, which might be translated as “was
making.” The choice of tense relates to a topic of discus-
sion at the Medici court, where this formulation was seen
to carry the implication that true art was never completed.
It is the only genuine signature that appears on any of
Michelangelo’s sculptures, although the story of its origin
is probably apocryphal.

THE DONI MADONNA . The Dom Madonna (fig.
1 6.39) is probably the only preserved panel picture
Michelangelo painted entirely himself — and even this

16.38. Head of the Virgin Mary, detail of fig. 16.37.

seems incomplete at points in the background. Its creation
has been linked to the 1503 wedding of Angelo Doni, a
prosperous weaver, to Maddalena Strozzi, of the famous
banking family. This couple were immortalized a few years
later in Raphael’s portraits (see figs. 16.49-16.50). The
tondo form is often associated with marriage in Renais-
sance art, while the composition has been adapted from
the intertwined figures of Leonardo’s lost cartoon for the
Madonna and Child with St. Anne (see p. 463), which
Michelangelo must have seen in 1501, when he returned to
Florence and was at work on the David. The compressed
grouping has the power of a spring coiled tightly within
the frame, and this tension is increased by the sharp
modeling of the drapery folds and brilliant color contrasts.
The yellow-orange silk of Joseph’s mantle clashes with
Mary’s rose tunic in a manner that anticipates the aston-
ishing colors that emerged when the Sistine Ceiling fres-
coes were cleaned.

The composition is stabilized by the horizontal band of
stone separating foreground and background. In the
smooth surfaces and precise contours of the foreground
figures, Michelangelo created the masses as if he were

474

THE-CINQUECENTO

16.39. MICHELANGELO. Doni Madonna, c. 1503. Panel, diameter 3'llV4 M (1.2 m). Uffizi Gallery, Florence. Probably commissioned by
Angelo Doni. The frame was designed by the artist.

Michelangelo’s medium here includes both tempera and oil, but he applied oil glazes in a manner related to the tempera techniques he had learned
as an apprentice. Whereas the Flemings shaded their colors from the highlights down to the darkest tone or black, Michelangelo shaded from the
most intense area up toward the lightest value of the color. For example, in painting fabric that changes color in shadow ( cangtante ), such as
Joseph’s yellow-orange silk, he shaded from intense orange up to yellow highlights. The smoothness with which Michelangelo made these
transitions is possible only because of the slow-drying potential of the oil medium.

THE ORIGINS OF THE HIGH RENAISSANCE

475

working with marble instead of pigment. The modeling of
the nude youths in the background, however, is softer;
possibly Michelangelo began all the figures in this fluid
style and only gradually brought some of them to the
almost obsessive finish seen in the figure of Mary and the
Christ Child.

Like many of Michelangelo’s creations, the Doni
Madonna defies exact interpretation, although certain ele-
ments are clear. Mary and Joseph appear to be presenting
the Christ Child (doni is the Italian for “gifts”). The
curious depression in the earth where the nude youths sit
or lean is a half moon — a motif from the Strozzi arms,
which appear in the frame of the painting. Such picto-
graphic references to family names were customary:
pebbles (sassetti) are evident in some of Ghirlandaio’s Sas-
setti Chapel frescoes, and Medici motifs and symbols often
appear in works they commissioned.

The inclusion of the Baptist, patron saint of the city, is
traditional in Florentine images of the Madonna and
Child. The saint’s name was a common one in Florence,
and the first four sons of Angelo and Maddalena Doni, all
of whom died shortly after birth, were named Giovanni
Battista. The flower that rises near the edge of the font
recalls Isaiah’s prophecy of the Virgin Birth: “For he shall
grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of
a dry ground.” The picture was probably intended to place
Angelo and Maddalena’s conjugal life under the protection
of the Ffoly Family, although we should not exclude the
possibility that it might allude to the death of their first
child. If this is the case, the date of the painting would be
somewhat later.

DAVID . In 1501 Michelangelo received a commission
from Pierre de Rohan, a Frenchman, to make a bronze
copy of Donatello’s bronze David (see fig. 10.22), which
Rohan had seen during a visit to Florence in 1494.
Michelangelo’s work on this copy is documented in a
drawing that shows a variation on Donatello’s figure and
a detail of the right arm (fig. 16.40). Unfortunately we
cannot tell whether the completed bronze was an exact
replica or a variation, for it was sent to France and has
been lost. In one inscription jotted on the drawing, “David
with his sling and I with my bow [drill], Michelangelo,”
the sculptor suggests that, just as David had faced an
enemy with a sling, so he, Michelangelo, would meet
challenges armed with a sculptor’s running drill. This
identification with the youthful hero who was a symbol
of the Florentine Republic is informative for Michelan-
gelo’s other commission for a figure of David, also received
in 1501.

Michelangelo’s colossal David in marble (fig. 16.1) was
intended for one of the buttresses of the Cathedral of Flo-

16.40. MICHELANGELO. Drawing after Donatello's Bronze
David . c. 1501-4. Ink on paper, lO 1 ^ x 7 V 4 " (26.4 x 18.5 cm).

The Louvre, Paris.

Made in response to a commission from Pierre de Rohan for a copy
of Donatello’s statue (see fig. 10.22). Michelangelo’s “copy,” cast in
1508, was sent to France, where it was acquired by Florimund
Robertet, who installed it in the courtyard of his palace in Blois.
Later it was moved to his chateau at Bury, one of the earliest
Renaissance buildings in France. Subsequently it disappeared and
there is no record of its appearance. One inscription on the drawing
is taken from a Petrarch sonnet; the fragment can be translated
“Broken the tall column and the verdant laurel tree hewed down.”

rence as part of a series of monumental figures to decorate
the upper level of the building. These had been proposed
as early as the Trecento, as is evident in Andrea da
Firenze’s view of the Florentine cathedral (see fig. 5.1).
Donatello had been commissioned to make a marble
David as part of this project (see p. 191), but it and its
pendant Isaiah by Nanni di Banco were found to be too
small for this location. Donatello had then been commis-
sioned to make for this area a colossal figure of Joshua in
terra-cotta painted to resemble stone (now lost). Donatello
and Brunelleschi also made a model for a Hercules for the

476

THE CINQUECENTO

same program. The goal of executing these figures in
marble was revived in the 1460s, when the sculptor
Agostino di Duccio was assigned a marble block some 17
feet tall, to sculpt a figure of David. Agostino, who may
have been executing a model designed by the aged
Donatello, abandoned the partially blocked-out stone,
probably when Donatello died in 1466, and the block was
assigned to Michelangelo in 1501. It was hardly an ideal
commission; the piece of marble was tall but shallow and
Michelangelo’s design must have been somewhat compro-
mised by Agostino’s initial work on the block.

Michelangelo’s hero is a boy of perhaps sixteen, not
fully grown, but with the powerful muscles of a youth who
has worked hard in the field. Michelangelo chose an
unusual moment to represent, for he shows David before
the battle. The sling rests over his shoulder and the stone
is still in his right hand, while his muscles are taut and his
brow is wrinkled in a defiant scowl. The figure pulls pow-
erfully to the left, away from the implied enemy, and
David’s apprehension is further indicated by the swelling
veins in the hand and the tense, contracted muscles of the
abdomen. This David , Michelangelo’s first adventure into
the realm of the colossal (the figure was sometimes referred
to in documents as the “colossus”), can be interpreted as a
symbol not only of the Florentine Republic but also of
humanity raised to a new power — a plane of superhuman
grandeur and beauty.

The pose, partly conditioned by the existing shape of the
block, must also be understood in terms of the intended
position of the statue on the Duomo. Placed on one of the
buttress pedestals (see fig. 6.7), the young hero would have
looked defiantly out over the city, gazing to the north. The
emphatic muscles and taut rib cage, the heavy projections
of the hair, the sharp undercutting of the eyes, and the
frowning brow were all intended to register from a
distance. In the forms of the face, the conflict between
mass and line, noted earlier in the Pieta , reaches a climax
of intensity.

When Michelangelo completed the David in 1504,
however, the Florentines decided not to place it on the
Cathedral. A commission was formed to choose where the
statue should go; testimony survives recording the opin-
ions of Filippino Lippi, Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Giu-
liano and Antonio da Sangallo, Piero di Cosimo, and other
artists, as well as artisans and other citizens. Leonardo
wanted the colossus to be in the Loggia della Signoria, the
great three-arched portico for public ceremonies to the
west of the Palazzo dei Priori (see fig. 2.40). The Sangallo
brothers insisted that it be kept out of the rain because the
marble was soft and had already suffered from exposure.
Piero di Cosimo suggested that the commission ask
Michelangelo. There is no record that it ever did, but it is

unlikely that he would have favored a position in the
Loggia dei Priori, which would have dwarfed the colossus
with its huge, open arches. The statue was uit-maidl
placed in front of the Palazzo dei Priori as a symfeo: of the
valiant republic, whose representatives had just elected
Piero Soderini gonfaloniere (standard-bearer) for life in the
hope of preserving the city’s continued freedom from the
Medici. It took four days to haul the statue on rollers to its
final position. The political import of the figure, present
from the start in the choice of David for one of the colos-
sal figures on the Duomo — a building of the highest reli-
gious and civic importance — was demonstrated when it
was attacked with stones by a band of youths, probably
Medici supporters.

The total nudity of the David is in keeping with
Michelangelo’s views on the divinity of the human body,
while its emphatic muscularity is typical of the sculptor’s
style. The prudery of Soderini’s republic kept the statue
hidden from public gaze for two months until a brass
girdle with twenty-eight hammered copper leaves could
be devised and hung about the young hero’s waist to mask
the genitals.

At the time of the third expulsion of the Medici from
Florence, in 1527, a bench thrown from a window of the
Palazzo dei Priori shattered the David's left arm and hand.
The pieces were rescued by Vasari and Francesco Salviati,
who were in their teens at the time, and kept until they
could be reattached many years later. Just as the Sangallo
brothers feared, the marble eventually suffered from expo-
sure, and the fine finish on the top of the head and the
upper surfaces of the shoulders is gone. In the nineteenth
century the statue was removed to a skylit rotunda built
especially for it at Florence’s Accademia.

How Michelangelo approached a standing figure when
there were no restrictions from a limited block of marble is
revealed in the unfinished St. Matthew (fig. 16.41), the
only one of a series of twelve apostles commissioned for
the interior of the Duomo that was even begun. As he pre-
pared to carve a full-sized figure in marble, Michelangelo
would make sketches out of clay, wax, and other soft
materials. Vasari, who worked for a while as an assistant
to Michelangelo, utilized what was probably the sculptor’s
metaphor when he compared the process of carving a
statue from a block of marble to that of lowering the water
from a figure in a bath. The sculptor would draw the con-
tours on the faces of the block and then pursue these pro-
files inward until the process of removing the stone
liberated the figure. In one of his poems, Michelangelo
compared this procedure to that of God the Creator liber-
ating man from matter.

St. Matthew holds up in his left hand a huge book as a
symbol of his Gospel. The figure moves forcefully in three

THE ORIGINS OF THE HIGH RENAISSANCE * 477

16.41. MICHELANGELO. St. Matthew. 1503-8. Marble, 8'10"
(2.68 m). Galleria delL Accademia, Florence. Commissioned by the
Opera del Duomo.

dimensions, his left knee crossing over his right leg and his
head thrusting back and up; in comparison the two-dimen-
sional movement of the David is readily apparent. The
position St. Matthew assumes here, with the limbs coun-
terpoised around the vertical axis of the figure, is known
as the figura serpentinata , a term first used by the Renais-
sance theoretician G.R Lomazzo, who attributed the pose
specifically to Michelangelo. For Lomazzo, designing a
figura serpentinata was the ultimate demonstration of the
taste and inventiveness of the sculptor.

The unfinished portions of St. Matthew show the stages
of Michelangelo’s working practice. The marks of the drill
used to define major elements can still be seen. Certain
areas have been roughed out with a pointed cylindrical
chisel, while some surfaces have reached a higher state of
completion under the strokes of a coarse, two-toothed
chisel. A three-toothed chisel was used to add more detail,
and it was with this tool that Michelangelo achieved the
breathing, pulsating surface much praised by Vasari. These
chisel marks warrant close study, for they show how
Michelangelo attacked the marble in individual strokes.
Each stroke brings us into intimate contact with the artist.
The final surface finish would have been created with a file
and by polishing with pumice and straw pads, destroying
the evidence of the energetic passage of Michelangelo’s
hand that we find so moving today.

The position of the body in the St. Matthew conveys the
subject’s spiritual intent; the dramatic intensity of the
gospel writer is conveyed in his pose even though the
sculpture is unfinished. Michelangelo seems to have pro-
ceeded in a manner that satisfied his need to communicate
emotion, giving the figure expression at each step of its
release from the block. These unfinished figures suggest
that for Michelangelo the act of creation was a dialogue
between himself and the figure he was creating.

Shortly after the David was set in place, the sculptor
received his first commission for a large fresco, the Battle
of Cascina (fig. 16.42) for the Sala del Cinquecento in the
Palazzo dei Priori, the same room where Leonardo had
already been working for a year on the Battle of Anghiari
(see fig. 16.30). Michelangelo never completed the paint-
ing, and the large cartoon he created has been lost; the only
evidence for the composition is a mediocre copy of the
central sections and several beautiful figure studies (figs.
16.42-16.43) The moment chosen for his subject may
seem trivial — the Florentine soldiers, cooling off in the
Arno, are alerted by an alarm and caught in the act of
struggling into their clothes and armor — yet, like its pred-
ecessor, the Battle of Lapiths and Centaurs (see fig. 16.34),
the Battle of Cascina gave Michelangelo the opportunity to
demonstrate his mastery of the nude body. Working in
secret in the hospital of Sant’ Onofrio, he produced a

478 .

THE CINQUECENTO

1 6.42. A R f STO I I LB D A $ A MG A LEO. Battle of (lasc'ma , parti.il
Copy after MIC EIELAjNG LiLO. Ear] y-sixteemh - century copy of
central section. Grisaille on panel, 30 X 52" (76 X 1 32 cm). Col.lee.tion
of tlie Earl of Leicester, Hoik ham Hall ( Courtesy Co urtatd d Institute of
Art, London ),

iViicb clan gel o’s original was cornmis'Sioned by tlie Florentine
Republic for the Safa del Ciriqueeento at tire Palazzo dei Priori,
Florence. The central figured of the composition were rep rod need in
an engraving in I 524, thus extending the influence of Michelangelo s
lost work; die design reappears, for exam pigeon a majolica plate
made several decades later.

composition of interlocking Figures, turning, twisting,
climbing, blowing trumpets, reaching to help comrades.
Michelangelo probably derived much of Iil$ knowledge of
figure s climbing Out of the water and pu.lling on clothes
from visits to a Florentine public bath, which Leonardo
frequented, every- Saturday for the same purpose.

fh e copy demonstrates Ik iw riie w o rk as a whole must
have revealed .Michelangelo's new vision, of the power and
energy of the human body. According to Vasari, some
figures in the cartoon were drawn Witt cross hatching,
others with shading and highlighted with white. The
drawing [fig. 1,6.43) serves as a corrective to the rather dry.

16.43, MICH LLANO LEO. .4 Male Figure Seen from Behind^
Study for the Battle of Case in a. c. 1504. Pen and ink over some black
chalk, IbVjs xl 1 v k" (40.9 x 28.5 any Casa Buonarroti, Florence.

T H E ORIGINS OF T H E El I G H R £ N A I S S A N C E

479

labored effect of the copy. Here Michelangelo adopted the
cross-hatching technique that he had learned from his
master Ghirlandaio, but strengthened it, using longer
strokes. His intimate knowledge of anatomy enabled him
to use curved strokes that follow the muscular structure,
and he emphasized the contours to suggest the rippling
muscles of a figure in movement. The particular figure
shown here appears in one of Michelangelo’s early studies
for the central grouping of bathers, but was not worked
into the final composition. Its technique helps us to under-
stand the potent effect that the original, full-sized cartoon
must have had. During its brief existence, the cartoon was
widely imitated by Florentine masters as an example of
how nude figures in action ought to be composed.

Raphael in Perugia and Florence

After Leonardo and Michelangelo, the third and youngest
member of the trio of High Renaissance masters is Raf-
faello Santi (or Sanzio; 1483-1520), known to us as
Raphael. He was not an innovator in the same sense as
Leonardo and Michelangelo, but for five centuries Raphael
has been praised as the perfect High Renaissance painter.
This is not difficult to understand, for in his art noble and
ideal individuals move with dignity and grace through
a calm, intelligible, and ordered world. His pictures mirror
Renaissance aspirations for human conduct and Renais-
sance goals for the human mind. He unified the move-
ments of his figures and the spaces he created for them into
integrated, harmonious compositions. Raphael’s order is
not merely intellectual or contrived, however. The figures
in his mature works seem to be impelled by an energy that
causes them to twist and turn gracefully and to group into
oval and spherical compositions. So easy is this motion, so
harmonious the relations of the figures, that even at
moments of drama they seem to radiate a super-human calm.

Born in Urbino, Raphael was brought up in its extraor-
dinary atmosphere of literary, philosophical, and artistic
culture and cosmopolitan elegance (see pp. 378-84). His
father, Giovanni Santi, was a rather mediocre painter and
poet who wrote a rhymed chronicle that provides infor-
mation about the reputation of Quattrocento painters.
Both father and son seem to have had access to the Mon-
tefeltro court and the Palazzo Ducale in Urbino (see fig.
14.29), where the young Raphael could have seen works
by Piero della Francesca, Botticelli, the Laurana brothers,
Uccello, Melozzo da Forli, the Spaniard Alonso Berruguete,
and the Netherlander Justus of Ghent.

When Raphael was eleven, his father died. We are not
certain at what age the boy went to Perugia to be appren-
ticed to Perugino, but according to Vasari he was brought
to Perugino’s studio by his father, who had written that

Perugino was “equal in age and endeavor” to Leonardo.
Raphael seems to have absorbed with ease both the virtues
and the cliches of Perugino’s style, and he rapidly became
the outstanding member of a busy bottega ; by the age of
sixteen he was already influencing other artists. At the
same time he was learning how to manage a workshop,
which during his maturity in Rome would help him main-
tain an impressive production schedule.

It is often nearly impossible to separate the style of
Raphael in these early years from that of his master. The
young artist’s hand must have been at work in many of
Perugino’s major commissions. Raphael’s debt to Perugino
is evident when we compare his Marriage of the Virgin (fig.
16.44), which Raphael proudly signed and dated in 1504
when he was twenty-one years old, to Perugino’s Christ
Giving the Keys to St. Peter (see fig. 14.16). There is the
same array of foreground figures, the same polygonal
background temple, the same intervening piazza. Even the
colors of the painting are derived from Perugino: the
cloudless blue sky; the strong, deep blues, roses, and
yellows of the drapery; the sun-warmed tan of the stone;
and the blue-green of the hills.

A second glance will disclose how the young painter
improved on his master. The serenity of this important early
work demonstrates a High Renaissance integration of form
and space. It was presumably commissioned for an altar
dedicated to the Virgin’s wedding ring in a church in Citta
di Castello, where Raphael painted several other pictures.
According to the Golden Legend , the suitors for Mary,
a virgin in the Temple, were to present rods (usually repre-
sented as sticks) to the high priest, and Mary’s hand would
be granted to the one whose rod produced a blossom.
Joseph holds his flowering rod in one hand, while the
other, bearing a ring, is joined to Mary’s by the high priest.
On the left stand the other Temple virgins, on the right
the rejected suitors, one of whom breaks his barren
rod over his knees. The graceful figures are woven into a
unity unknown in Perugino’s art. The perspective
orthogonals lead past the steps into the Temple, and we
look directly through it to the horizon, while hills frame
the structure.

The architecture of the Temple reflects the ideas of both
Bramante, who had already been authorized to create the
Tempietto (see fig. 17.9), and Leonardo (see fig. 16.8). Its
lofty shape also suggests the Dome of the Rock in
Jerusalem; this Muslim structure had been built on the site
of Solomon’s Temple and was often identified with it,
making it an appropriate backdrop for a representation of
the Virgin’s marriage.

Raphael’s St. George and the Dragon (fig. 1 6.45 )
betrays the influence of Florentine art — especially
Donatello’s St. George relief (see fig. 7.14) and Leonardo’s

480

THE CINQUECENTO

16.44. RAPHAEL. Marriage of the Virgin. 1504. Panel, 57" x 3'10'A" (!.7x 1.2 m). Brera Gallery, Milan.
Probably commissioned by rlie Albizzini family of Cicta di Gastello,

• 481

THE ORIGINS OF THE HIGH RENAISSANCE

16.45. RAPHAEL. St. George and the Dragon. 1505-6. Panel, 11 Vs
x 8V2" (28.3 x 21.6 cm). National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
(Mellon Collection). The painting is signed RAPHELO V (Raphael
of Urbino) on the horse’s bridle.

Battle of Anghiari (see fig. 16.30) — to such a degree that
we suspect the painter had already visited Florence. He
must also have visited Rome, since the Torre della Milizia,
a medieval structure still standing in the ancient Imperial
Fora, is portrayed just above the muzzle of the horse.
Raphael’s forms here are carefully integrated: the warrior
saint on his rearing charger crosses the masses of the land-
scape to create an X-shape and, as a result, the downward
thrust of the lance discharges into the monster’s breast all
the energies of the picture. From the painter’s proud signa-
ture on the bridle to the spiraling curves of the horse’s tail
and the clarity of the foliage, the forms have taken on a
metallic precision. The gleaming armor and the reflection
of the princess in the water are rendered with almost
Netherlandish delicacy.

Probably sometime in 1505 Raphael settled in Florence,
where his master Perugino had painted many frescoes and
altarpieces. He fell into an avid market; in three years, he
painted no fewer than seventeen surviving Madonnas and
Holy Families plus other major works for Florentine
patrons. Drawings (fig. 16.46) show how he worked: even

before he had decided where the features were to go,
Raphael let his hand revolve in a series of spontaneous
curving motions. The resulting ovoid and spiral forms
convey their energy to the figures and also help to explain
the smoothly finished shapes of the completed paintings.
Once the relationship of masses was decided, Raphael con-
densed them into a unified Leonardesque pyramid.

Probably the first of the Madonnas is the Madonna of
the Meadows (fig. 16.47). The painting contains echoes of
Leonardo’s compositions with intertwined figures (see figs.
16.27-16.28), especially in the placing of the Virgin’s leg
and foot. Most of the series belong to this new type, which
we might even call the Madonna of the Land because an
open expanse of Florentine countryside seems to be placed
under the protection of the Virgin and Child and the infant
Baptist, patron of the city. Here Raphael, as throughout
the series, let the Virgin’s neckline dip to follow the curves
of the horizon and then put her head on the same level as
the hills. The clear, simple coloring and the easy upward
movement of reciprocally balancing forms are Raphael’s
own, as is the return of energy from the downcast eyes of

16.46. RAPHAEL. Studies of the Madonna and Child . c. 1507-8.
Pen and ink, 10 x 7V4" (25.4 x 18.4 cm). British Museum, London.

482

THE CINQUECENTO

the Virgin to the group below. The halo, now reduced to a
simple circle of gold seen in depth, enhances the grace of
the linear movement and completes the balance between
the ovoid forms and the distant landscape.

Raphael’s Florentine Madonnas seem somehow less
complete than works of this period by Leonardo and
Michelangelo because Raphael was less interested in the
problems of anatomy and expression so important to the
two older artists. To Raphael a picture was complete once
its main masses were posed in a satisfying relationship, and
line, color, and surface had a fluid interrelationship; at this
point in his career he was not interested in adding further
detail. This style is completely appropriate for his subject
matter. In his Florentine Madonnas Raphael presents a
noble and serene existence in which the pictorial har-
monies seem to emanate naturally from the divine figures.
These gentle Virgins and sweet children are gracefully
poised against the answering background of hills and deep
blue sky.

In the Small Cowper Madonna (fig. 16.48), one of the
most intimate of the series, the Virgin is seated upon a low

16.47. RAPHAEL. Madonna of the Meadows. 1505 or 1506. Panel,
44 V 2 x 34V4 m (113 x 87 cm). Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

The date on Mary’s neckline can be read as either 1505 or 1506.
Perhaps commissioned by Taddeo Taddei.

16.48. RAPHAEL. Small Cowper Madonna, c. 1505. Panel, 23 3 /s x
17 3 /s" (59.5 x 44 cm). National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
The church in the background closely resembles the sanctuary of
S. Bernardino outside Urbino.

bench before a landscape of road-traversed meadows and
clumps of trees. The asymmetry of the hills is related to
the pose of Christ’s figure, and the smooth, gliding forms
of the Virgin’s hair are continued in the veils that course
lightly about her shoulders. Christ’s head moves slightly
away as his arms complete the circling motion of the
veils, creating a composition that is simple, graceful,
and harmonious.

Some of the most convincing portraitists — Raphael,
Hans Holbein, Nicolas Poussin, Jean-Dominique Ingres —
sharply separated this vein of their production from the
idealism of their more formal work. Raphael, cool and
detached by nature, seems to have been especially inter-
ested in capturing the character of his sitter. It should be
noted, however, that he did not dwell on individual idio-
syncrasies in the manner of the Netherlandish realists. He
set his Florentine patrons, like his Madonnas, against a
background of landscape and sky delicately adjusted to the
shapes of their bodies and his understanding of the forces
of their personalities.

THE ORIGINS OF THE HIGH RENAISSANCE * 483

16.49. RAPHAEL. Angelo Doni. c. 1506. Panel, 24 V 2 x I 7 V 4
(63 x 45 cm). Pitti Gallery, Florence. Probably commissioned
by Angelo Doni.

Angelo Doni, for example (fig. 16.49), relaxes outdoors
with one arm on a balustrade, the shaggy masses of his
hair reflected in the trees at the lower right, the bulky
shapes of his arms and hands in the low hills of the back-
ground. The forms of his wife, Maddalena Strozzi Doni
(fig. 16.50), are also integrated with the landscape, to the
point that the artist repeated the pattern of the beaded
border of her transparent shoulder veil in the foliage of the
slender tree. As in Perugino’s Francesco delle Opere (see
fig. 14.20), an effect of energy is obtained by individual
wisps of hair silhouetted against the sky. Angelo, the
wealthy wool merchant, is impressive at thirty — cool, self-
contained, firm. The portrait of his fifteen-year-old bride,
however, has to compete with her obvious prototype, the
Mona Lisa (see fig. 16.29). There are no mysteries con-
cealed here — but neither, at this juncture, are there many in
Raphael’s art, except for his uncanny sense of proportion
and balance. To the successful young painter in command
of the resources of the new style, the unknowable of
Leonardo may not have seemed worth knowing. He seems

16.50. RAPHAEL. Maddalena Strozzi Doni. c. 1506. Panel, 24 V 2 x
I 7 V 4 " (63 x 45 cm). Pitti Gallery, Florence. Probably commissioned
by Angelo Doni.

to have been satisfied with his compositional perfection
and, in these portraits as never in his Madonnas, he
devoted careful attention to the modeling of the features
and hands of husband and wife, even to their rings, the
damask and moire of Maddalena’s dress, and the careful
approximation of her shoulders and chest to the shape and
texture of the pearl that hangs from her pendant. Like
Michelangelo, Raphael was destined to enter a new dimen-
sion once he left Florence for papal Rome, but that crown-
ing phase of his activities belongs to the next chapter.

Fra Bartolommeo

From his Florentine drawings, we know that Raphael was
familiar with the works of Leonardo and Michelangelo.
He also learned from — and influenced — a Florentine
named Baccio della Porta (1472-1517), who became
known as Fra Bartolommeo after he became a monk at San
Marco. Fra Bartolommeo had been greatly influenced by
the works of Leonardo and, by the time Raphael arrived in

484

THE CINQUECENTO

Florence, was at work on his Vision of St. Bernard (fig.
16.51), an obvious attempt to update Filippino Lippi’s
painting of the same subject (see fig. 13.31) in terms of the
new High Renaissance style. Everything immediate, per-
sonal, and introspective and all references to daily exis-
tence have been discarded in the search for the new
simplicity and idealism. The saint kneels before a classical
pedestal on which books are open, but we are not asked to
imagine that this is his outdoor study, as in Filippino. The
setting is an aesthetic device designed for compositional
purposes, and the two other saints (apparently Anthony
Abbot and John the Evangelist) were most likely included
at the request of the patron.

In contrast to Filippino’s version, Mary is a heavenly
vision, touching nothing earthly with her feet or hands;
carrying her smiling child, she is borne into the scene by
angels. One of the angels holds an open book before the

saint, who is, however, so lost in the transcendent vision
that he does not even glance at it. The picture is in poor
condition — much of the upper paint surface is lost — but
the atmospheric landscape is intact, and the figures and
drapery move with a grace that must have impressed the
young Raphael. The gravity and amplitude of the forms
are characteristic of the High Renaissance. The device of a
little picture-within-the-picture is perhaps borrowed from
Fra Angelico’s altarpiece for Fra Bartolommeo’s home
monastery of San Marco (see fig. 9.4), but Fra Bartolom-
meo has muted the illusion by leaning a book against it.
For him, as for Fra Angelico, the device serves as a fore-
ground counterpart for the vanishing point of the perspec-
tive, thus achieving a kind of spatial harmony.

In the following chapter we leave Florence for Rome,
where the patronage of Pope Julius II encouraged the
development of the High Renaissance style.

16.51. FRA BARTOLOMMEO. Vision of St. Bernard. 1504-7. Panel, 7' x 7'2V4" (2.1 x 2.2 m). Accademia,
Florence. Commissioned for the Badia, Florence.

THE ORIGINS OF THE HIGH RENAISSANCE

485

THE HIGH RENAISSANCE IN ROME

T he next phase of Italian art and history is
dominated, at the outset at least, by a single
figure, Pope Julius II (fig. 17.2). As Cardinal
Giuliano della Rovere, he had exercised great
power during the pontificates of Sixtus IV (r.
1471-84), his uncle, and Sixtus’s successor, Innocent VIII
(r. 1484-92), but in 1492, when Rodrigo Borgia ascended
the papal throne as Alexander VI, Giuliano left Rome. In
1503 he was elected pope following the less-than-month-
long pontificate of Pius III, and thus began, as a result of
Julius’s patronage, an artistic revolution that started in the
Vatican and expanded to Rome and central Italy, much of
the peninsula, and even to other parts of Europe. Julius
immediately set about a program of reform in the Roman
Church, while in the secular sphere he re-established law
and order in the crime-ridden streets of Rome and subju-
gated the rebellious Roman nobles. Next he set out to
reconquer the lost provinces of the papacy and to drive
foreign invaders out of Italy, beginning with the French in
the north. His success there would doubtless have been
followed by an expulsion of the Spaniards in the south and
the unification of the peninsula under papal leadership if
death had not stopped him after ten years.

The last decade of Julius’s life, when he was in his
sixties, treated Europe to the spectacle of the pope stand-
ing in armor beside blazing cannons, attacking his enemies
in language both coarse and violent, beating his cardinals
with his cane when they hesitated to follow him through
snow that was breast-high on the horses, growing a beard
in defiance of all custom and tradition, and acting in
general like an unchained giant loose on the map of Italy.

The modest attempts of Quattrocento popes to trans-
form medieval Rome into a classical city were superseded
by Julius’s determination to rebuild whole sections, driving
broad avenues bordered with palaces through hovels and
ruins alike, and replacing the basilica of St. Peter’s, now
more than a thousand years old, with a new structure that
would embody the imperial splendor and spiritual drive
of his regime. Intellectually and artistically, the Rome of
Julius II must have been an exciting place. It was also dusty

17.2. CARADOSSO . Medal of Julius II, 1506. Bronze,
diameter 2 V 4 " (5.7 cm; shown actual size). Bibliotheque
Nationale de France, Paris.

Caradosso (c. 1452-c. 1527) was Bramante’s collaborator for
architectural ornament for his Milanese projects. The reverse of this
medal shows Bramante’s plan for St. Peter’s (see fig. 17.11). This and
a second medal, with a slightly different portrait, were cast for the
founding of St. Peter’s.

Opposite: 17.1. MICHELANGELO and others. Frescoes for the Sistine Chapel, Vatican, Rome (see also figs. 13.19, 14.16-14.17, 17.23,
20.1-20.4). The ceiling measures 45 x 128' (13.75 x 39 m).

THE HIGH RENAISSANCE IN ROME

487

and noisy from demolitions and reconstructions, and was
repeatedly threatened by the collapse of the pope’s politi-
cal schemes and invasion by his enemies.

The development of the Julian High Renaissance was
supported by the pope’s interest in reviving the grandeur of
ancient Rome, which included the collection and display of
ancient works. Any ancient remains were investigated and
the area where the ruins of Nero’s Golden House had been
discovered in the late Quattrocento was of special interest;
visitors were lowered on knotted ropes into the buried
rooms to see the painted grotteschi (see pp. 374-75) that
influenced Filippino Lippi and other artists. It was here in
1506 that a large sculptural group was discovered (fig.
17.3). This impressive sculpture gained added stature
when the architect Giuliano da Sangallo (see pp. 309-12)
identified it as the Laocoon and His Sons described in the
Natural History of the ancient author Pliny (36.37-38),

17.3. HAGESANDROS, ATHENODOROS, and POLY-
DOROS. Laocoon and His Sons . Early first century bce (?).

Marble, height 8' (2.4 m). Musei Vaticani, Rome.

The three sculptors who carved this work were Greek, but they
were probably working for a Roman patron who had commissioned
a work reminiscent of earlier Hellenistic art. After the work was dis-
covered, a number of copies were made in marble and bronze in dif-
ferent sizes. In 1523 Pope Leo X commissioned the sculptor Baccio
Bandinelli to make a full-sized marble copy to be presented to King
Francis I of France.

who also named the artists. The Renaissance thus gained
an ancient sculpture of high quality made by named artists
and mentioned in an authoritative ancient text. That Pliny
had described it as “of all paintings and sculptures, the
most worthy of admiration” only increased the attention
the sculpture received. Pope Julius II bought it almost
immediately and, less than six months after the discovery,
had it installed in a niche in the courtyard of his new
palace, the Belvedere (see figs. 17.17-17.18). The impact
of the sculpture was immediate; the impassioned struggle
and dramatic muscular exertion of its figures played a role
in Michelangelo’s frescoes for the Sistine Chapel Ceiling
(see figs. 17.23-17 .39), for example, which was begun
only two years after the Laocoon' s discovery.

Another influential ancient work was the so-called
Belvedere Torso, a fragment of an ancient figure (fig.
17.4). The Belvedere Torso was first recorded in the 1430s,
in a Roman collection, but its fame dates from the first
decade of the sixteenth century, when it became part of the
Vatican collections and was put on display in the Belvedere
Palace. During the Renaissance ancient fragments were
normally restored to give an impression of completeness,
but this torso was not touched; tradition has it that
Michelangelo refused the opportunity to re-create the
limbs and head, fearing he would be unequal to the task.
The incomplete torso became a challenge to the imagina-
tions of Renaissance and later artists, who attempted in
drawings, paintings, and sculptures to reconstruct the
original arrangement of head, arms, and lower legs.
Among the Cinquecento representations inspired by this
fragment, perhaps the most famous are the young men that
decorate the Sistine Chapel Ceiling (see figs. 17.23, 17.25,
17.29, 17.32, 17.34). The combined impact of the
Belvedere Torso and the Laocoon on the development
of High Renaissance sculpture and painting in Rome
is incalculable.

One can hardly imagine Julius II calling upon Botticelli
or Perugino to create the visual symbols needed for his
vision of a militant, expansive papacy. High Renaissance
style, forged in the crisis of republican Florence, was a
perfect instrument for him, and Michelangelo the ideal
artist. Later Julius and Michelangelo were joined by
Raphael and also by Bramante, who was to become the
most important High Renaissance architect and a close
friend and confidant of the pope. The painters who had
been summoned by Sixtus IV for the first program in the
Sistine Chapel had returned to their home towns without
creating a common style. But, whether or not they knew it
was happening, the three great artists who carried out
Julius’s projects did, to some extent, submerge their per-
sonalities under the inspiration of their dynamic and
demanding patron.

488 *

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Above: 17.4. MAARTEN VAN HEEMSKERCK. Drawing of the
Belvedere Torso , 1532-36/37. Pen and ink on paper. Kupferstich-
kabinett, Berlin.

The sculptural fragment known as the Belvedere Torso , which is
signed by Apollonios of Athens, son of Nestor, is probably a work
of the first century BCE emulating the style of the third century BCE.
The animal skin on which the figure sits is sometimes thought to be
that of a lion, which would identify the figure as Hercules.
Heemskerck was a Dutch painter who visited Rome, where he met
Vasari, in 1532-36/37. His drawings of Roman ruins and
Renaissance works provide us with important information about
the appearance of Rome in the 1530s (see fig. 20.18). When he saw
the Belvedere Torso , it was still lying on its back. Of this fragment
from antiquity, Michelangelo is reported to have said: “This is the
work of a man who knew more than nature.”

Grander in its scope, freer in its dynamism, the Roman
period of the High Renaissance is distinct from its Floren-
tine predecessor and it developed rapidly from phase to
more majestic phase. Pope Julius II, as patron, exercised a
formative influence on High Renaissance style and should
be considered one of its creators. He determined what was
to be built, carved, or painted and by whom. He probably
played a role in choosing the subject matter and how it was
to be treated. Such was the grandeur of Julius’s undertak-

ings that Italian art could never return to its former, more
modest, self.

Donato Bramante

Donato di Pascuccio (1444-1514), known as Bramante,
was from Urbino. He started as a painter of considerable
creativity and first appears as an architect in Milan in
1485, when he undertook the rebuilding of Santa Maria
presso San Satiro (fig. 17.5). Basically Albertian in its
single-story, barrel-vaulted nave with round arches sup-
ported by piers decorated with Corinthian pilasters, the
church culminates in a crossing crowned by a Pantheon-
like dome that gives a hint of how Alberti’s domes for the
Malatesta Temple (see fig. 10.3) and Sant’Andrea at
Mantua (see fig. 10.7) might have appeared. The choir
seems to stretch for three bays beyond the crossing, under
a barrel vault matching that of the nave, but the ground
plan reveals that the space that we seem to see here does

17.5. DONATO BRAMANTE. Sta. Maria presso S. Satiro,
Milan, interior view toward choir. 1485. Height of arch 34'9"
(10.6 m).

THE HIGH RENAISSANCE IN ROME * 489

17.6. BRAMANTE. Plan of Sta. Maria presso S. Satiro,
Milan. 1485.

not exist (fig. 17.6). A street directly behind the plot pre-
vented Bramante from building a choir, so he was forced,
in a triumph of the Renaissance art of deceit, to create this
illusion. The effect is the result of carefully calculated dec-
oration on a virtually flat wall; the actual depth is only a
matter of a few feet. The false choir of Santa Maria presso
San Satiro indicates Bramante’s preoccupation with space,
and is a premonition, in miniature, of how the interior of
Julius IPs St. Peter's (see figs. 17.13-17.1 5) might have
looked had it been completed and decorated according to
Bramante’s plans.

Another Milanese church, Santa Maria delle Grazie, had
been begun in the Gothic style in 1463. It was located in
the area of Milan where both Leonardo and Bramante
lived in the 1480s and 1490s. In 1492 Duke Ludovico
Sforza ordered the choir to be replaced by a Renaissance
structure intended to house the tombs of the Sforza
dynasty. He later decided that the nave should also be torn
down and a new nave and facade built, but this larger
project was never completed. Although no document con-
nects Bramante’s name with the present apse, transept,
crossing, and dome, they are usually considered to be by
him and to be strongly influenced by Leonardo da Vinci,
whose ideas on centrally planned churches they reflect (see
fig. 16.8). The structure is composed, like the examples in
Leonardo’s drawings, of permutations and combinations
of geometric forms such as cubes, hemispheres, half-
cylinders, and the like (fig. 17.7). Bramante transformed
the oculi of the Gothic church into circles that are treated
as ornament in the exterior decoration. In the interior (fig.
17.8), where apses curve outward around the dome, the
circles are used to decorate the arches below the dome. The
effect is bold, dramatic, and thoroughly Renaissance in its
decorative motifs.

The fall of the Sforza dynasty in 1499 left Bramante
without work at what was, for the period, the advanced

17.7. BRAMANTE. Plan of Sta. Maria delle Grazie.
1492-97. Commissioned by Ludovico Sforza.

17.8. BRAMANTE. Sta. Maria delle Grazie, Milan, interior view
toward choir. 1492-97.

age of fifty-four. He moved to Rome and immediately
found work as an architect during the last years of the pon-
tificate of Alexander VI and then under Julius II.

The Tempietto (“Little Temple”; fig. 17.9) was commis-
sioned to mark the spot where, at the time, it was believed
that St. Peter had been crucified. Instead of the Corinthian

490

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and Ionic orders preferred by Quattrocento architects,
Bramante here chose the more severe Roman Doric,
adding symbols in the metopes that refer to the Eucharist
and papal authority. The circular shape, however, which he
could have studied in ancient round temples in Rome and
Tivoli, encouraged Bramante to abandon the planar
quality of Quattrocento architecture, which had already
been challenged by Leonardo’s radial schemes. The Tempi-
etto exists in space like a work of sculpture, an effect
enhanced by the deep niches in the outer walls. As we
move about it, its peristyle and steps seem to revolve
around the central cylinder.

The effect Bramante intended can be realized today only
if we re-create in our minds the surrounding circular court-
yard, which was never built (fig. 17.10). Each column of
the outer peristyle would have related radially to a column
of the Tempietto, linking the inner and outer structures to
each other across the courtyard. This association would
have created a unity that is the product rather than the sum

17.9. BRAMANTE. Tempietto, S. Pietro in Montorio, Rome.
Authorized 1502; completed after 1511. Height 47' (14 m).
Commissioned by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain. The
columns used here are spoglia from antiquity, although the ancient
building from which these sixteen columns were taken is unknown.

of its parts — an analysis that makes the Tempietto the
architectural equivalent of Leonardo’s experiments with
pyramidal compositions of interlocking figures (see p. 463;
figs. 16.27-16.28). The intellectual order and inherent
majesty of this building, whose solids and spaces are beau-
tifully harmonized, help explain the choice of Bramante as
papal architect by Julius II.

In 1506, with the excuse that it was in danger of immi-
nent collapse, the pope commissioned Bramante to rebuild
the most sacred areas of St. Peter’s, the archetype of Early
Christian church architecture in the West, which had been
sanctified by more than eleven hundred years of ritual and
was filled with monuments of sculpture and painting. In
the mid-Quattrocento, Pope Nicholas V had transferred
the seat of the papacy from the Lateran Palace to the
Vatican, and a new apse was begun to replace the Early
Christian one while preserving the nave; Bernardo
Rossellino was the builder, but the apse may have been
designed by Alberti. Julius II apparently asked Bramante to
design a new apse, but whether he originally intended to
save the nave of the old basilica is uncertain. In any case,

17.10. BRAMANTE. Plan of Tempietto with proposed courtyard,
S. Pietro in Montorio, Rome (from Sebastiano Serlio, II terzo libro
d’architettura , Venice, 1551).

THE HIGH RENAISSANCE IN ROME * 49 1

he soon decided a completely new structure was called for.
To Michelangelo’s anger, Julius had some of the monolithic
ancient columns that lined the nave pulled down. This
gesture of negation and affirmation launched the greatest
architectural vision of the Renaissance on its perilous
course. Twelve architects and twenty-two popes later, the
building Bramante began was completed but, with its
Michelangelesque shell and Baroque extensions, Bra-
mante’s design is barely recognizable.

The very grandiosity of the Julius-Bramante project is
perhaps a symptom of the weaknesses of the High Renais-
sance as well as an expression of its ideals and aspirations.
The immense structure could not possibly have been com-
pleted during the reign of the aging pope, but it was com-
menced with surprising speed considering the difficult
situations that Julius and his papacy were facing. The pro-
jected costs were overwhelming; when Raphael took over
as architect in 1514, he wrote that this “greatest building
work ever seen” would cost more than a million gold
ducats. To finance the construction the Vatican encouraged
the sale of indulgences, a practice that aroused such oppo-
sition from Martin Luther and the German princes that it
eventually led to the Protestant Reformation.

Although there is more of Bramante’s design in the inte-
rior than is often realized, we can reconstruct his exterior
only through drawings by others and through a medal (fig.
17.11) by Caradosso made to celebrate the beginning of
construction. The plan and axonometric reconstruction
illustrated here (fig. 17.12) shows the Greek-cross plan,
with its great central dome and four equal arms ending in
apses. Filling the corners are four smaller Greek crosses
(also domed) on the interior and four towers on the outside.

17.11. BRAMANTE. Design of exterior, St. Peter’s, Vatican, Rome,
on bronze medal by Caradosso. 1506. Diameter 2 V 4 " (5.7 cm;
shown actual size). British Museum, London. Medal commissioned
by Pope Julius II. For the front of this medal, with its portrait of
Julius II, see fig. 17.2.

75 ft

17.12. BRAMANTE. Plan and axonometric reconstruction of his
design for St. Peter’s of 1506.

An observer entering at a principal portal would have
looked straight through the building; the view from one of
the entrances in front of the smaller domes, on the other
hand, would have offered a complex succession of spaces.
At one point Bramante apparently considered how his new
structure would look if he could surround it with a huge
piazza that responded to the forms of the great church in
the center, a logical development from his proposed circu-
lar courtyard around the Tempietto.

Bramante started construction with one of the apses and
the four piers to support the dome (fig. 17.13), which was
located directly above the tomb of St. Peter. The use of the
giant order below barrel vaults on the interior would have
recalled Santa Maria presso San Satiro, but on a much
grander scale. The church would have been crowned by
a colossal dome on pendentives — not the more vertical,
ribbed dome of the Tempietto, but the low, hemispherical
dome of the Pantheon. It was to be elevated on a peristyle
of columns on the exterior and a smaller columned
gallery on the inside (fig. 17.14). With its horizontal
elements, the hemispherical dome would have created an
impression of masses at rest that contrasted with the
soaring corner towers.

The area around the dome was built largely as Bramante
planned it. By 1514 the seventy-year-old architect was able

492

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17.13. BRAMANTE. Drawing by BALDASSARE PERUZZI of
a Perspective Study , with Section and Plan , of St. Peter’s (partially
embodying Bramante’s second plan). Plan in sanguine, on paper;
elevation in pen and ink; part straightedge and compass, part
freehand, 21 V 4 x 26 3 /V' (53.9 x 67.8 cm). Gabinetto dei Disegni
e Stampe, Uffizi Gallery, Elorence.

17.14. BRAMANTE. Design for elevation and section of dome,
St. Peter’s, Vatican, Rome. 1506 (from Sebastian o Serlio, II terzo
libro d’architettura , Venice, 1551).

to see the four arches of the crossing aiimi rhe rour penden-
tives, as well as the foundations of thrm or the arms 1 r rue
cross and of some of the chapels (fig. 1 ”.!/>). The roof
arches and piers are built on such a scale that ehey could
not be changed and are clearly visible today, in >p::e or : 10
later marble and gold ornament that covers them. Despite
this impressive beginning, however, much of the rave o«
Old St. Peter’s still stood, and a temporary constructicr*
sheltered the saint’s tomb. Bramante’s dome was not evaa
begun, although, because the pendentives intended to
support it were in place, its diameter was established.

Insight into the unity and harmony that Bramante
intended for St. Peter’s is offered by the pilgrimage church
of Santa Maria della Consolazione at Todi, in Umbria (fig.
17.16). Begun in 1508, the church was long thought to
have been based on a model by Bramante himself,
although the only architect’s name recorded is that of the
otherwise obscure Cola da Caprarola. Four identical apses
radiate from a central square, although there was appar-
ently some question at first as to whether tradition might
not demand a nave, as at Santa Maria del Calcinaio at

17.15. BRAMANTE, MICHELANGELO, and others. St. Peter's*
Vatican, Rome, interior view at crossing.

THE HIGH RENAISSANCE IN ROME * 493

17.16. COLA DA CAPRAROLA and
others. Sta. Maria della Consolazione,
Todi. Begun 1508.

Cortona (see fig. 14.11). The delicate treatment of the
window frames, entablatures, and corner pilasters con-
trasts with the broad wall surfaces to create an effect of
fragility and lightness unique among the centrally planned
churches of the Renaissance. The Consolazione was not
completed until the following century, and the entrance,
balustrade, and dome show Roman taste of a later era. The
verticality of the interior makes it difficult to photograph,
but an effect of harmonious unity is created by the
repeated rounded shapes of apses and half-domes that sur-
round the central dome. The proportional relationships are
defined by pilasters, entablatures, and other decorative ele-
ments in the ancient style.

Another vast project designed in 1505 by Bramante for
Julius II, which, like St. Peter’s, was left truncated at the
architect’s death, was the rebuilding of the papal palace. It
was to be united to an earlier country house known as the
Belvedere (“the beautiful view”), nearly 1,000 feet (300

meters) above St. Peter’s at the top of a hill. The whole
(now part of the Vatican Museums) was known as the
Belvedere Palace. Bramante’s proposal joined the palace
and the pre-existing country house with long wings (fig.
17.17). These were to enclose an enormous area that
would have become a formal garden with fountains, while
staircases and ramps connected the levels; figure 17.17
provides some sense of this, although when it was made,
around 1560, only the east side of the palace was com-
plete. The walls were articulated with pilasters and entab-
latures in the Renaissance fashion, but alternating bays of
the open loggia were recessed, so the pilasters appear more
three-dimensional and the entablatures have a dynamic
rhythm in space as they protrude and recede (fig. 17.18).
Note the small niches, perhaps intended to receive sculp-
tures, that flank the much larger openings into the loggia.
At the top of the vista is a huge open apse; it was near this
area that Julius exhibited the papal collection of ancient

494

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17.17. BRAMANTE. Belvedere, Vatican, Rome under construc-
tion, as seen from the papal palace in a drawing by G.A. Dosio.
Construction begun 1505; this view c. 1558-61. Uffizi, Florence.
Building commissioned by Pope Julius II.

sculptures, which included the Laocoon , the Belvedere
Torso , and the Apollo Belvedere (see figs. 17.3-17.4, 1.5).
While the enormous barrel vaults of St. Peter’s echo
Alberti’s Sant’Andrea (see fig. 10.9), the facades of the
Belvedere reflect the Palazzo Rucellai (see fig. 10.5) and
other Early Renaissance palazzi but with a vigorous new
three-dimensionality. The scale of the scheme also tran-
scends anything attempted in the Quattrocento. Together
the pope and his architect, who read Dante to him in the
evenings, envisioned a plan more extensive than that of
any other palace built between the days of Emperor
Hadrian and those of Louis XIV. Time was against them,
and their vision was doomed to incompletion. Later,
Bramante’s palace suffered insensitive additions and the
destruction of the vista by an arm connecting the two sides
that seems to have been explicitly designed to ruin the con-
tinuous open garden envisioned by Julius and Bramante.

1 7.18. BRAMANTE (after design by). Elevation of bay of north
side of the upper court of the Belvedere, as seen in a drawing from
the Codex Coner. Sir John Soane’s Museum, London.

THE HIGH RENAISSANCE IN ROME * 495

17.19. BRAMANTE. Palazzo Caprini, Rome, facade, c. 1510. Engraving by Antonio Lafreri, 1519.
Building commissioned by Adriano Caprini.

Little remains of the other official buildings designed
and in some cases built for the new Rome of Julius II.
Although long since destroyed, Bramante ’s Palazzo Caprini
(fig. 17.19) — also known as the House of Raphael because
the artist bought it in 1517 — cannot be ignored because it
provided a model for the patrician town houses that
replaced the popular three-story structure with its super-
imposed orders established by Alberti’s Palazzo Rucellai.
Bramante instead followed the Roman custom of devoting
the ground floor to shops and setting above it a piano
nobile destined for the owner. The Palazzo Caprini’s
heavily rusticated ground floor provided a base for
engaged pairs of half-round columns, again on tall bases,
that drew attention to the most important part of the
palace. This design was so successful that it was repeated
a number of times in Roman palaces and elsewhere.

Michelangelo 1505 to 1516

In 1505, one year before Pope Julius II commissioned
Bramante to rebuild St. Peter’s, the pope called Michelan-
gelo from Florence to design for him an enormous tomb,
decorated with sculptures, to be placed in Old St. Peter’s.
We are not sure of its intended location in the old basilica,
but it is possible that Julius wanted his tomb to confront
that of Peter, the first pope. To carry out this commission,
Michelangelo abandoned several undertakings in Florence,
including the series of sculptures of apostles for the

Duomo and the fresco of the Battle of Cascina (see figs.
16.41-16.43). Today we have only verbal accounts written
down much later and a few drawings with which to recon-
struct the three-story mausoleum first conceived by Julius
and Michelangelo. Scholars generally agree on the follow-
ing: Michelangelo made a number of preliminary designs,
and the one selected by the pope called for a free-standing
structure with an oval burial chamber for the sarcophagus;
the lower story of the exterior was decorated with niches
containing statues of Victories flanked by herms, to which
would be attached bound and struggling male Captives;
there were to be at least eight Victories and sixteen
Captives — one reconstruction calls for ten Victories and
twenty Captives; on the second story, the plan called for
statues of Moses, St. Paul, the Active Life, and the Con-
templative Life.

The principal dispute arises over the appearance of the
top story. Vasari wrote:

The work rose above the cornice in diminishing steps, with a
frieze of scenes in bronze, and with other figures and putti
and ornaments in turn; and above there were finally two
figures, of which one was the Heavens, who smiling held on
his shoulder a bier together with Cybele, goddess of the
earth, who seemed that she was grieving that she must
remain in a world deprived of every virtue by the death of
this man; and the Heavens appeared to be smiling that his
soul had passed to celestial glory.

496 *

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17.20. MICHELANGELO. Tomb of Pope Julius II, proposed reconstruction of project of 1505. The size of the base of this first proposal was
said to be 36 x 24' (11 x 7.3 m). Commissioned by Pope Julius II for Old St. Peter’s, Rome.

No text mentions a statue of the pope, but some scholars
have proposed that the bier supported his effigy. One
claims that the pope was recumbent (which would have
made him almost invisible from the floor). Another points
out that the explicit word Vasari uses for bier really meant
the sella gestatoria , or portable papal throne, hence Julius
II would have been shown carried into the next world,
blessing as he went. Documents tell us that a marble block
intended for the papal effigy was delivered to Rome. Given
that Vasari did not mention such a figure, the most proba-
ble solution is that Julius would have been represented
lying on the sarcophagus within the burial chamber. A
suggested reconstruction of the 1505 design, culminating
in a bier that follows Vasari’s description, is offered here
(fig. 17.20).

After Michelangelo had spent a year transporting
marble blocks from Carrara and had started carving, the
pope interrupted the commission. Although Michelangelo
told his version of this episode several times, each time
with richer and more picturesque detail, it is still not clear
why work was stopped. Presumably funds had to be
diverted to the rebuilding of St. Peter’s by Bramante. In any
case, the pressure to finish the tomb became a nightmare
for the artist during the following forty years. The original
design was the first instance when Michelangelo combined
figures and architecture and it became the germ of his
major pictorial work, the Sistine Ceiling. Here elements
designed for the 1505 version of the tomb came to fruition,

while the ceiling in turn acted as a crucible for new sculp-
tural ideas utilized in later versions of the tomb.

Of the architecture and the more than forty over-life-
sized statues intended for the tomb, Michelangelo had
completed only the niches with their rich decorations
before he left in anger for Florence in 1506. There is evi-
dence, however, that the poses of the two Captives now in
the Louvre (see figs. 17.42-17.43) and the Moses (see fig.
17.41) were determined and blocked out at this time.

Although Julius had already envisioned inviting
Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel,
instead he marched to Bologna in 1506, recaptured the
city, and from there requested that the outflanked Floren-
tines send Michelangelo to him. The sculptor spent the next
eighteen months in Bologna modeling and casting a colossal
bronze portrait of the pope. The finished work survived for
a little more than three years before antipapal forces, again
in control of Bologna, pushed it from its pedestal on the
facade of San Petronio, melted it down, and cast the bronze
into a cannon, mockingly called “La Giulia,” a feminine
version of Julius’s name. The specific purpose of this cannon,
it was said, was to fire at the backside of the fleeing pope
should he once again attempt to capture Bologna. The life
of Michelangelo’s colossal statue was so short and its
subject so despised by the Bolognese that no drawing is
known and we have only modest indirect evidence as to its
appearance. Perhaps some of its grandeur is embodied in
one or more of the prophets of the Sistine Ceiling.

THE HIGH RENAISSANCE IN ROME * 497

THE SISTINE CHAPEL. Michelangelo had scarcely
arrived back in Florence in the spring of 1508 when he was
called again to Rome, the idea of painting a figural program
on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel having become a defi-
nite commission. At this time, of course, the chapel might
have been considered already fully decorated: the program
of Sixtus IV had included scenes from the lives of Moses
and of Christ and images of popes at the window level (fig.
17.1; see figs. 13.19, 14.16-14.17), while the vault had
been painted with the traditional blue with gold stars (see
fig. 3.1). According to Michelangelo’s own later account,
the pope proposed that he paint figures of the twelve apos-
tles around the edge of the vault, one in each of the span-
drels between the arches. The central part of the ceiling
was to be filled by “ornaments according to custom” —
apparently a network of geometric and decorative patterns
(fig. 17.21).

Michelangelo objected that the design would be “a poor
thing.” “Why?” asked the pope. “Because [the apostles]
were poor too,” replied Michelangelo. And then, still
according to the artist’s own version (written much later, at
a time when he was threatened with lawsuits over the
tomb), the pope told him he could paint anything he liked.
There is no reason to doubt that Michelangelo’s dissatis-
faction with the subject prompted the expansion of the
program; perhaps he felt that twelve large figures offered

little intellectual and spiritual challenge. Nevertheless, it is
hard to accept that Julius would have entrusted a complex
theological program at the center of Western Christendom
to an artist who, in all probability, could not read Latin.
The cycle that eventually filled the ceiling is, visually and
theologically, the most complex of all Renaissance fresco
cycles (figs. 17.22-17.23). Julius and Michelangelo were
most likely advised by Marco Vigerio della Rovere, the
pope’s fellow Franciscan and first cousin once removed,
whom Julius had elevated to cardinal in 1503 and whose
Christian Decachord was published in Rome in 1507 and
dedicated to the pope.

At this point, the twelve apostles gave way to Old Tes-
tament prophets and sibyls from antiquity. They are seated
on thrones framed by pairs of putti, painted to resemble
marble sculpture, who support a painted cornice that in
turn supports benches on which nude youths are seated.
The youths hold painted lengths of cloth from which are
suspended what seem to be bronze medallions with figural
scenes. The continuous cornice frames a central narrative
spine of nine scenes from Genesis, alternately large and
small, which fill the center of the ceiling. At certain points,
the cornice seems to be supported by rams’ skulls — an
ancient Roman decorative motif — flanked by bronze-
colored nude figures. In the four corners, triangular span-
drels contain more Old Testament scenes (also visible in

17.21. MICHELANGELO. Study for Sistine Ceiling (portion of sheet),
c. 1508. Ink and black chalk, size of detail shown approx. 12 x 12"
(27.5 x 27.5 cm). British Museum, London.

498 •

THE CINQUECENTO

fig. 17.23). Above the windows are lunettes and small
spandrels that contain figures representing the generations
of the ancestry of Christ. Michelangelo had to destroy two
of these lunettes, Perugino’s frescoed altarpiece, and two
scenes from the earlier cycle (see fig. 14.18) when he
painted his Last Judgment on the altar wall (see fig. 20.1).

To read all the various elements correctly, a viewer must
face each of the four walls in turn, and in order to read the
narrative scenes right side up, we must start at the entrance
and move toward the altar. This means that the narrative
sequence must be read backward, starting with the story
of Noah, which is immediately overhead when we enter
the chapel, and culminating over the altar with the
beginning of the creation story in which God divides light
from darkness. This unusual approach inverts the narra-
tive in time and is a crucial clue to understanding the
chapel’s iconography.

The meaning of the ceiling as a whole has been the
subject of controversy. Before we turn to this issue, it is
important to remember that the chapel was already deco-
rated with the parallel lives of Moses and Christ and rep-
resentations of historic popes. These cycles encompassed
the Old and New Testaments and papal history; even the
apostles, the first suggestion for the ceiling’s iconography,
were present because of their roles in the life of Christ.

The notion of placing enthroned figures on the ceiling
can be related to earlier chapel decoration; note, for
example, the four sibyls in the vault of Ghirlandaio’s Sas-
setti Chapel (see fig. 13.1). The substitution of prophets
and sibyls for the apostles probably resulted from the deci-
sion to devote the central area to scenes taken from the
Flood and Creation episodes described in Genesis.

Michelangelo’s role in the evolution of the chapel’s
iconography is uncertain, nor do we have any idea how
this deeply thoughtful man of serious convictions may
have related his personal ideas to the agenda of Pope Julius
II and the involvement of the pope’s theological advisors,
including Marco Vigerio della Rovere and the papal
retinue. Who made the decision to dedicate the spine of the
chapel to the Genesis scenes will remain a mystery unless
further documentation is discovered; even that would not
recover the discussions and debate that must have led to
the result that we see today. Whatever the process, it
should be clear that the Flood and Creation scenes were
not chosen simply because they were biblical scenes not
previously included in the chapel. If that were the case, the
normal sequence would have been sufficient. The inversion
of the normal sequence suggests that we need to look for
an additional level of meaning.

The interpretation of Michelangelo’s poetry is as
debated as the meaning of the ceiling, but it is clear that the
ceiling’s themes explore issues also important in his poetry:

God’s creation of humanity, notions ot beauty, and how
human sin interferes with the individual's personal rela-
tionship to God. God’s creation is the main subject of the
ceiling, while the beauty of his creation is evident in the
idealized nudes that populate the scenes and decorate the
enframement. In terms of human sinfulness, the cycle starts
with the drunkenness of Noah, the sin of the one man God
felt was worth saving from his wrathful flood. As we read
the Genesis scenes backward through time and approach
the altar where the Mass is performed, we pass through the
sin of Adam and Eve (see fig. 17.29) to scenes that empha-
size God’s titanic power as he creates humanity and the
earth as a setting for human life. The cycle culminates with
the scene that marks the beginning of the biblical Creation:
God making light in darkness. The metaphor of enlighten-
ment is basic to this scene, which is located over the altar
where, in Christian tradition, the ritual of the Mass
reunites repentant humanity with God.

According to a basic principle of Christian theology,
prophets and sibyls understood how Old Testament events
like those shown on the spine of the ceiling predicted the
New Testament coming of Christ. For this reason the
ancestors of Christ represent the physical origins of what
the prophets and sibyls understand will be humanity’s spir-
itual destiny. Another level of symbolism is provided by the
garlands of oak leaves and acorns held by a number of the
nudes. Rovere, the family name of Sixtus IV and Julius II,
means “oak.” The oak tree of the family arms had also
been prominent in the Quattrocento decorations on the
side walls.

In 1508 Michelangelo set to work quickly, producing
the hundreds of preliminary drawings that had to be made
before large cartoons could be started. A few of the draw-
ings survive, suggesting the labor that went into every
detail, but the cartoons have perished. They were laid
against the moist intonaco , temporarily nailed into place,
and their outlines incised into the surface with a stylus or
transferred using the spolvero technique. The stylus marks
in the plaster, which can still be seen in some photographs
(see fig. 17.33), document Michelangelo’s working
method. He designed a new kind of scaffolding, supported
by beams projecting from holes in the walls, which
brought him to the proper level without support from
either ceiling or floor. The scaffolding was arched like the
vault and, except for infrequent removal so that the work
could be seen from the floor, was in place for the entire
four and a half years of his undertaking, permitting the
artist to walk about as he wished and to paint from a
standing position — not lying down, as is still popularly
believed. In a drawing he shows himself painting the
ceiling standing up, and in the accompanying sonnet,
quoted in the caption to fig. 17.24, he described at length

THE HIGH RENAISSANCE IN ROME

499

500

THE CINQUECENTO

Key to Ceiling Panels

Genesis

1 Drunkenness of Noah.

2 Deluge (figs. 1 7.25-17.26).

3 Sacrifice of Noah.

4 Fall of Adam and Eve ,
Expulsion (fig. 17.29).

5 Creation of Eve (fig.

17.31).

6 Creation of Adam
(fig. 17.32).

7 Separating Waters
from Land.

8 Creation of the Sun, Moon,
and Plants (fig. 17.34).

9 Separation of L igh t from
Darkness (fig. 17.35).

Ancestors oe Christ

10 Solomon with his
Mother.

1 1 Parents of Jesse.

12 Rehoboam with
Mother.

13 Asa with Parents.

14 Uzziah with Parents.

15 Hezekiah with Parents.

16 Zerubbabel
with Parents.

17 Josiah with Parents.

Prophets

18 Jonah.

19 Jeremiah.

20 Daniel.

21 Ezekial.

22 Isaiah (figs. 17.27-17.28).

23 Joel.

24 Zechariah.

Sibyls

25 Libyan Sibyl (fig. 17.36).

26 Persian Sibyl.

11 Cumaean Sibyl (fig.
17.30).

28 Erythrean Sibyl.

29 Delphic Sibyl.

Old Testament
Scenes of Seva tiq n

30 PunishmB&t of Ha man.

31 Worship of th-e
Brazen S erpevit (fig.
17.39).

32 David Beheading Gohatb
(fig. 17.38).

33 Judith and Holof ernes.

17.23. MICHELANGELO. Sistine Ceiling frescoes, Vatican, Rome. 1508-12. 45 x 128' (13.75 x 39 m). Commissioned by Pope Julius IT. It is
estimated that Michelangelo’s paintings cover almost 6,000 square feet (550 square meters) of the surfaces of the ceiling and upper side walls.

THE HIGH RENAISSANCE IN ROME

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17.24. MICHELANGELO. Sonnet with a representation
of the artist standing, painting a figure on the ceiling over
his head. c. 1510. Pen and ink, 11 x 7" (28 x 17.8 cm).
Casa Buonarroti, Florence.

The text on the drawing reads:

I’ve got myself a goiter from this strain....

My beard toward Heaven, l feel the back of my brain
Upon my neck, I grow the breast of a Harpy;

My brush, above my face continually,

Makes it a splendid floor by dripping down....

Pointless the unseeing steps I go.

In front of me, my skin is being stretched
While it folds up behind and forms a knot,

And I am bending like a Syrian bow.

the physical discomfort he experienced while painting. By
September 1508, Michelangelo was already painting, and
by January 1509 he was already in difficulties. Apparently
he did not know enough about the recipe for intonaco , and
the Deluge became moldy and had to be scraped off
and redone.

The course of his work paralleled dramatic events in the
pontificate of Julius II. When Michelangelo ran out of
money, which happened twice, he had to go to Bologna
and beg from the pope, who was in a crucial phase of his
war with France. At the time of the second trip, in Decem-
ber 1510, the pope had already grown the beard that gives
him such a prophetic appearance in his late portraits.
Perhaps Michelangelo was moved by the spectacle of the
old man’s heroism and his vision of an Italian peninsula
unified under the papacy. Whatever the source of inspira-
tion, he seems to have become more personally engaged as
the work proceeded.

The first section of the ceiling to be undertaken — the
Noah scenes, flanking prophets and sibyls, and the scenes
of David and Judith in the corner spandrels — is relatively
timid in handling. The Deluge (fig. 17.25), first of the
larger scenes, is like the Battle of Cascina (see fig. 16.42)
in its carefully drawn figures composed into what seem to
be sculptural groups. Only two rocks remain above the
rising waters, and groups of men, women, and children
struggle to save themselves while the ark is shown receding
into the distance. One of the most moving details is
the father who carries the body of his drowned son (fig.
17.26). Michelangelo’s precision extends even to the
representation of benches and pots in the midst of this
cosmic disaster.

One of the first prophets to be painted was Isaiah (figs.
17.27-17.28), who seems relatively youthful and energetic
despite his gray hair and a face ravaged by disturbing
thoughts. Deep in meditation, he closes his book and turns

502

THE CINQUECENTO

17.25. MTCRELAN'OHLO. Delude. 1509. Fresco, 9’2 B k 18'8"
(2.8.x 5.7 m). Si stm c Ceiling.

Iwcnty-nine gwrnate patches* indicate that this fresco was painted
in twenty-nine days; the total number of giornate patches for the
ceiling as* a whole is 5 82.

in a majestic movement. He seems about to drop Ins left
haiuWon winch Ins head had apparently been propped —
as he listens to one of his accompanying putti (each of the
prophets and sibyls has two attendant putti who exhort or
inspire them). He turns away from the Deluge , which is
above and to his left, as if in answer to God's promise to
him: “for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should
no more go over the; earth; so have 1 sworn that J would
not be? angry with thee" (Isaiah 54:9),

As he worked on this first section, Michelangelo appar-
ent!)' realized that greater boldness was demanded, for
even within the first section (.in i hr right third of figure
17.23), his figures become somewhat larger and broader.

THF, HIGH REN AISSANC £ T N R 0 JM E ■

503

After the first section was completed in September 1510,
the planks of the scaffolding were removed, and Michelan-
gelo had his first chance to see how his figures looked from
the floor. His response was immediate, and the figures in
the second section are dramatically increased in scale.

The Temptation and Expulsion had previously been
depicted separately (see figs. 8.12-8.13), but Michelangelo
united them (fig. 17.29) with a tree that echoes the shape
of the Della Rovere oak from the pope's coat of arms. In
Michelangelo’s composition, the crime leads to its punish-
ment, and the tempting Satan and avenging angel are inter-
twined with the tree’s branches. Vigerio described the
Temptation as an antitype or opposite of the Last Supper,
suggesting that the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good
and Evil was the opposite of the Eucharist, fruit of the Tree
of Life. He explained how Adam “turned his eyes from the
morning light which is God, and gave himself over to the
fickle and dark desires of woman,” which is what seems to
be happening in the fresco.

Here, for the first time in the ceiling frescoes, Michelan-
gelo’s figures fill the foreground space and are on the same
scale as the surrounding nudes. The expressive depth has
also increased; in no earlier figure on the ceiling do we find

a face that approaches the anguished intensity of the
expelled Adam. The right half of the scene seems to have
been inspired by the Expulsions of Masaccio and Jacopo
della Quercia (see figs. 8.13, 7.24), but now these Early
Renaissance compositions are transformed by High
Renaissance grandeur.

The Cumaean Sibyl (fig. 17.30), immensely old and
yet still incredibly muscular, turns her wrinkled face
toward the altar. She reads a book, and her attendants
hold another. In her youth, when she was beautiful, she
was loved by the ancient god Apollo, who offered to
grant her as many years as the grains of sand she held in
her hand; when she refused his love and his offer, he
doomed her to look her age. Because it was believed that
her writings were preserved on the Capitoline Hill, she was
held to symbolize the age and strength of the Roman
Church. Her attendants look calmly and gently down on
her aged face and herculean left arm, which foreshadows
the powerfully muscled arm of Michelangelo’s Moses (see
fig. 17.41).

Michelangelo placed the Cumaean Sibyl next to the
scene showing the creation of Eve from Adam’s side (fig.
17.31), which Vigerio, following long tradition, compared

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THE CINQUECENTO

17.29. MICHELANGELO. Fall of Adam and Eve and Expulsion. 1510-11. Fresco, 9'2" x 18'8" (2.8 x 5.7 m). Sistine Ceiling.
The fresco was completed in thirteen days.

to the creation of the Church from the side of Christ.
God, who appears here for the first time in the Sistine
Ceiling, stands on the ground, his mantle wrapped about
him. The massive volumes of Michelangelo’s figures in this
scene recall Masaccio’s in their bulk and in their freely
painted surfaces.

It appears that the two scenes with Adam and Eve and
their attendant prophet and sibyl date between the autumn
of 1510 and the return of the pope to Rome the following
summer, his armies routed, and the city awaiting a French
attack that never materialized. On August 14, 1511, the
eve of the Assumption of the Virgin, the pope attended the
first Mass in the chapel after the planking had been

removed for the second time. Our discussion of Michelan-
gelo’s figure of St. Matthew (see pp. 477-78) emphasized
the artist’s need to be satisfied with the expression of a
work at each step in its development; when Michelangelo
saw his ceiling decoration from the floor when it was two-
thirds complete, he apparently decided that he needed to
change direction once again.

He may also have been inspired by the successes of
Julius’s army as he worked on the final section, and the
revival of papal hopes. In any case, both form and spirit
are transformed. The first thing we notice is another
increase in the scale of the figures. The prophets and sibyls,
who have empty space around them in the first section of

THE HIGH RENAISSANCE IN ROME * 5°5

1 ”*30. MICHELANGELO. Cumaean Sibyl.
1510. Fresco. Sistine Ceiling.

Below: 17.31. MICHELANGELO. Creation
of Eve. 1510-11. Fresco, 5' 7" x 8 ' 6 V 2 "

(1.7 x 2.6 m). Sistine Ceiling. This scene
was completed in twenty-two days.

17.32. MICHELANGELO. Creation ofAxiam. 1511-12. Fresco, 9'2" xtlS'S" {2.8 x 5.7 m). Sistine Ceiling. Giornate reveal that this fresco
was completed in approximately seventeen davs.

the ceiling and fill their thrones in the second, now
overflow them. 1 he footstools are lower and the sur-
rounding ornament gives way before these figures, who are
nearly half again as large as their predecessors. In the
narrative scenes, feweg more colossal figures move within
frames that are now too small to hold them. God himself,
who was absent from the first four scenes and who stood
on the earth in the Creation of Eve, moves dramatically
through the heavens j.n the last four scenes.

Of all the images that crowd the ceiling, the Creation of
Adam {fig. 17.32] has most deeply impressed posterity.
Here we are given a vision that expresses both the majesty
of God and the nobility of h uman i tv. Borne aloft, his
mantle bursting with wingless angels, God is represented
moving before us, his calm g&ze accompanying and rein-
forcing the movement of Iris arm (fig. 17.33). He extends
his forefinger, about to touch that of Adam, whose name
means “earth” and who reclines on the barren ground, his
arm supported on his knee. While, the divine form is
convex and explosive, the humani is concave, receptive,
and conspicuously impotent. All the pomp seen in

17.33. Detail of fig. 17.32.

THE HIGH RENAISSANCE IN ROME

5 o -

17.34. MICHELANGELO. Creation of Sun, Moon, and Plants. 1511-12. Fresco, 9'2" x 18'8" (2.8 x 5.7 m). Sistine Ceiling.
This large scene was completed in seven days.

traditional representations of the Almighty has vanished,
and God is garbed in a short tunic that reveals the strength
of his body. Even Michelangelo’s precise depiction of
veins, wrinkles, and gray hair cannot reduce the power
radiated by this celestial apparition. Love and longing
seem to stream from the face of Adam toward the
Omnipotent, who is about to give him life, strength, and
responsibility. The beauty of God’s creation is evident in
the nobility of his proportions and in the pulsing forms
and flowing contours. A century of Early Renaissance
research into the nature of human anatomy seems in ret-
rospect to lead to this single moment, in which all the pride
of antiquity in the glory of the body and all the yearning of
Christianity for the spirit have reached a mysterious and
perfect harmony.

The contact about to take place between the two index
fingers has been described as a current, a not inappropri-
ate electrical metaphor given the period’s knowledge of
what we today call “static electricity.” The river of celes-
tial life surrounding God seems ready to flow into the
waiting body of Adam.

An explanation of the content of the Creation of Adam
may lie in the third and fourth stanzas of the hymn “Veni
Creator Spiritus” (“Come, Holy Spirit”), which was sung
before each vote when the Sistine Chapel was used for the
conclave to elect a new pope:

Thou, sevenfold in thy gifts,

Finger of the paternal right hand,

Thou, duly promised of the Father

508 •

THE CINQUECENTO

Enriching our throats with the word,

Let thy light inflame our senses,

Pour thy love into our hearts,

Strengthen us infirm of body
Forever with thy manly vigor.

Divine guidance, then, explains not only the outpouring of
love into the heart of Adam but also the impotence of his
body until the Lord fills it with “manly vigor.” Frederick
Hartt even suggested that the Della Rovere acorns
(glandes) should be related to the genitals of the nudes. In
High Renaissance Rome such explicit symbolism was con-
sidered neither indecent nor irreverent, in contrast to the
Florence of Piero Soderini, which had required that the
genitals of Michelangelo’s David be covered (see p. 477).

While it is likely that the pose of Adam was inspired by
ancient figures of river gods, the drawings from the model
that survive for this figure show that the powerful idealism
was derived from Michelangelo’s own imagination.
Muscles that in the live model were awkward have been
transfigured in the fresco by the force that flows through
them as well as by the rhythm of the lines, which relates
the profiles on opposite sides of a single limb like the inter-
twined themes in a polyphonic musical composition.

The final large scene depicts the Creation of Sun, Moon,
and Plants (fig. 17.34). In a simple gesture, the Lord,
sweeping through the heavens attended by angels, propels
the sun from one hand and, apparently simultaneously, the
moon from the other. According to the account in Genesis,
this event occurred on the fourth day. At the left Michelan-

gelo shows the Lord from the back, stretching forth his
hand on the third day to draw plant life from the earth. In
one interpretation of the ceiling, a scholar has called atten-
tion to St. Augustine’s quotation of the words of the Lord
to Moses: “While my glory passeth by ... thou shalt see my
back parts: but my face shall not be seen” (Exodus
33:22-23).

After the relative restraint of the preceding scenes, the
violent movement here comes as a shock. On the right the
Lord hurtles toward us, then turns as swiftly to move
away. His fierce expression and powerful movement raise
his image to a new plane of grandeur. The sun and moon
are whirling out of the space of the picture. Many of the
forms are dramatically foreshortened; Vasari expressed his
wonder at how the Lord’s right arm could be inscribed
within a square and still seem completely projected in
depth. And the figures are so huge that, if brought to the
foreground plane and not foreshortened, they could not be
contained within the frame. A new painterly freedom
accompanies this explosion of movement. Broad sweeps of
the brush indicate torrents of beard and hair, from which
a few wisps escape and seem to dissolve into air. Line is still
operative, as always in Michelangelo, but here it becomes
less important as a means for creating mass.

The last scene in the cycle, directly over the altar, is the
first in Genesis, the Separation of Light from Darkness
(fig. 17.35). Here, even our point of view changes: this is
the only place on the ceiling that an event is presented as if
viewed from below. Michelangelo painted this scene in a
single day, and incisions on the fresco surface reveal that he

17.35. MICHELANGELO.
Separation of Light from Darkness.
1511-12. Fresco, 5'7" x 8'6!*"

(1.7 x 2.6 m) Sistine Ceiling.
Michelangelo painted this scene
in one day.

THE HIGH RENAISSANCE IN ROME * 509

changed the position of God’s left arm at the last minute.
Originally it was stretched further away from his body, but
as Michelangelo painted, he decided to bring the two
hands closer together, thus focusing God’s actions into a
smaller area.

The subject of this fresco is illuminated in Vigerio’s
Christian Decachord by a dialogue across the ages between
Moses and St. John the Evangelist:

MOSES: In the beginning God created the heavens and the

earth.

JOHN: In the beginning was the Word.

MOSES: The earth was without form and void,

JOHN: The Word was with God and the Word was God.

MOSES: Darkness was on the face of the abyss.

JOHN: In Him was life and the life was the light of men, and

the light shineth in darkness.

MOSES: The Spirit of God floated over the waters.

JOHN: And the Word was made flesh.

The words of Vigerio’s dialogue suggest a potential unity
between the opposing scenes of Moses and Christ on the
walls by bringing together the Old Testament words, here
put into the mouth of Moses, with New Testament text
drawn from John’s Gospel. The message of the pictorial
cycle of the chapel, ceiling, and walls culminates above the
altar, where the Eucharist is celebrated.

The brilliant light of the Separation of Light from Dark-
ness seems to fall onto the pages of the open book held by
the Libyan Sibyl (fig. 17.36); perhaps this is a blank book
on which the first words of Genesis will be written. She
turns to close her book and replace it on its desk while she
looks downward at the altar, as if about to step from her
throne. One of her putti points to her. The red chalk
drawing for this figure (fig. 17.37) shows that, like the
other female figures on the ceiling, the Libyan Sibyl was
drawn from a male model, a not unexpected procedure
during a period when there was little expectation that
female models would be available. In the painting,
Michelangelo has softened the male anatomy slightly. At
the lower left-hand corner of the drawing he repeated the
face, apparently in an effort to transform the features of
his male model into the Hellenic beauty of a sibyl. In addi-
tion he analyzed the structure of the foot and hand, which
in the fresco bear enormous weight.

The twenty nude youths seated around the cornice
encapsulate beauty and power. At first sight they may
appear out of place in a Christian chapel, especially since
most of their poses are drawn from antique prototypes.
There is, however, a long tradition of nudity in Christian
art: all souls are naked before God and are so depicted
in the Last Judgment (see figs. 14.37-14.38, 20.1). The

17.36. MICHELANGELO. Libyan Sibyl. 1511-12. Fresco.
Sistine Ceiling.

youths are descendants of those who appeared a few years
earlier in the background of Michelangelo’s Doni
Madonna (see fig. 16.39). They uphold not only the
medallions, most of which depict biblical scenes from the
Book of Kings, but also garlands of Della Rovere leaves.
Whether or not the nudes can ever be fully “explained,”

5 io

THE CINQUECENTO

Above: 17.37. MICHELANGELO. Study for Libyan Sibyl. 1511.
Red chalk, ll 3 /s x 8 V 2 " (28.9 x 21.4 cm). Metropolitan Museum
of Art, New York.

surely on one level they represented in Michelangelo's
mind a vision of a new and transfigured humanity.

The nudes offer various types, movements, and poses, as
well as expressions that suggest that they are responding to
the scenes they flank. While the earliest pairs are virtually
symmetrical in pose, each later pair demonstrates a dra-
matic contrast in position. The beautiful proportions, the
flowing contours, and the light shining on their youthful
skin reflect in small scale the qualities of Adam in the
Creation of Adam. One of the most impressive is the youth
above Jeremiah (visible at the lower left in fig. 17.34).
While his pose is balanced in elegant equilibrium, his eyes
gaze into the abyss where God divides light from darkness.

The four spandrels at the corners of the chapel were
painted with the adjacent sections of the ceiling and there
is, therefore, a strong discrepancy in style between the first
two, which are simple and straightforward in composition,
and the complex designs, powerful masses, and drastic
foreshortenings of the second two, which date from the
final period of work. All four represent scenes from the
Old Testament that prefigure the coming of Christ. David
Beheading Goliath (fig. 17.38) is one of the two spandrels
from the first section. The central interlocked figures create
a clear narrative event that reflects Leonardo’s and
Michelangelo’s experimentation with a unified composi-
tion — an effect here enhanced by the conical tent. When
we compare this with one of the last of Michelangelo’s

17.38. MICHELANGELO.
David Beheading Goliath.
1509. Fresco. Sistine Ceiling.
Michelangelo spent twelve days
painting this scene.

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5 1 1

17.39. MICHELANGELO.
Worship of the Brazen Serpent.
1511-12. Fresco. Sistine
Ceiling.

The complex composition of
this spandrel took thirty days
to paint. The black square near
the bottom was left by the
restorers to indicate how much
of the color was obscured
before the cleaning.

works on the ceiling, the Worship of the Brazen
Serpent from 1511-12 (fig. 17.39), we can immediately see
both the change in the scale of the figures and Michelan-
gelo’s move away from High Renaissance compositions
toward more complex, centrifugal groupings of interlock-
ing figures.

The subject of the Brazen Serpent was thought to fore-
shadow the Crucifixion: “Even as Moses lifted up the
brazen serpent in the wilderness, so shall the Son of man
be lifted up” (John 3:14). At the left, a young Moses lifts a
woman’s hand to the miracle-working image. On the right
those who have yet to behold the serpent that will heal
them writhe in a tangle of arms, legs, and pain-racked
bodies seen in dramatic foreshortening. Never had figures
been so treated, not even in the most extreme examples of
the ancient Hellenistic style. Later artists, including the
Venetian Jacopo Tintoretto, were greatly influenced by this
composition (see figs. 19.40, 20.36, 20.45).

Restoration has freed Michelangelo’s surfaces from
layers of lamp, candle, and incense smoke, a coating of
animal glue, and even an application of Greek wine in the
eighteenth century to brighten the colors; after this layer
had darkened with time, another restoration added exten-
sive repainting. The results of the cleaning have banished
forever the old contention that Michelangelo’s colors were
stony because of his background as a sculptor. The colors
are as brilliant as those of the Doni Madonna. The flesh is

delicately modeled and the drapery vibrates with contrasts
of hue and vivacious iridescent effects. Isaiah, for example
(see fig. 17.27), wears a tunic of a clear rose color, a blue
cloak with a green lining, and an underskirt and sleeves of
changing tones of gray, yellow, and lavender. Michelan-
gelo’s colors here help explain the color schemes used by
painters in the following decade.

THE SECOND PHASE OF THE TOMB OF
POPE JULIUS II. After the death of Julius in February
1513, Michelangelo returned to the project of the tomb.
Many of the stones quarried for this project, languishing
in Piazza San Pietro, had “gone bad,” as Michelangelo
described it, and some had even been stolen. Julius’s heirs
no longer required a free-standing tomb, probably because
they were not sure if it would be possible, under a new
pope, to place it in St. Peter’s. One of the rejected designs
of 1505 was revived, and drawings and the contract reveal
that the tomb was to be attached to the wall, with the
pope’s remains interred in a sarcophagus on the second
story and his figure shown either lifted from it or lowered
into it by angels (fig. 17.40). Above, in a lofty niche, the
Virgin and Child were to float as if in a vision. There were
to be standing saints in other niches, but the rest was to
have followed the 1505 project, except that the Victories
would be reduced to six, the Captives to twelve, and the
space for the door to the burial chamber filled with a relief.

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17.40. MICHELANGELO. Tomb of Pope Julius II, proposed
reconstruction of project of 1513 (with figs. 17.41-17.43 shown
in place). Commissioned by the heirs of Pope Julius II.

Although Michelangelo worked for three years on the
tomb, only three of the statues were brought even close to
completion. The Moses (fig. 17.41) was used on the reduced
version of the project dedicated in 1545, but two Captives
(see figs. 17.42-17.43), for which there was no room in the
final version, were eventually given away by Michelangelo.
Moses was originally intended to occupy a corner position
on the second story, where he would have been seen
sharply from below and as a transitional figure between
two faces of the monument. Today the sculpture is in a
central position and at ground level, and the torso seems
unusually long, an effect that can be corrected if the viewer
crouches and looks up at the figure from the far right.

This Moses has not just this moment come down from
Mount Sinai, nor is he angry at the Israelites for worship-
ping the Golden Calf; perhaps for Michelangelo, repre-
senting a specific narrative moment would not capture the
character of the man. Instead, Moses holds the Tablets of
the Law and looks outward with prophetic inspiration as
the man who saw God and talked with him on Mount
Sinai. Moses’ head features the horns that are not uncom-
mon in Christian art (see p. 335). The figure is related to

some of the figures on the Sistine Ceiling: the left arm. for
example, repeats almost exactly that of the Citmaean Sibyl
(see fig. 17.30); the face, with a disturbed expression caused
by Moses’ encounter with God on the mountaintop. seems
to recall that of the Almighty as painted on the ceiling see
fig. 17.34). The powerful drapery slung over the right knee
expresses Moses’ vitality, as does his spectacular beard.
The bulk of the locks, smoothed by the hands of reverent
visitors over the centuries, are pulled aside by the right
hand and cascade down to the gigantic lap.

Michelangelo made small models for his earlier statues,
and one for the Moses was seen by Raphael as early as
1511 (see p. 520). The bulk of the carving, however, is
thought to have been done in 1513-16. In a letter of 1542,
Michelangelo mentions that the Moses was almost fin-
ished, although he may have done more work on the face

17.41. MICHELANGELO. Moses, c. 1511, 1513-16, 1542^45(r).
Marble, height 7'8 1 /z" (2.35 m). Ill S. Pietro in Vincoli, Rome.
Commissioned by Pope Julius II for his tomb (fig. 17.40).

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5 i 3

just before the statue was placed on the final tomb.
Certainly, the subtle shifting of planes and the new softness
of the surfaces are unlike the sharply defined, almost
linear precision of Michelangelo’s earlier sculptural style.
Perhaps this was in part due to his intervening experience
as a painter.

The two Captives in the Louvre may have been intended
to flank the corner below Moses (see fig. 17.40). The
Captive sometimes known incorrectly as the Dying Slave
(fig. 17.42) is not dying but is overpowered by bonds
against which he pulls idly, as if he were drowsy or over-
come by the effects of a potion. In contrast, the Captive
sometimes known as the Rebellious Slave (fig. 17.43)
struggles against the bands that restrain his torso and arm.
Although prefigured by some of the nudes on the Sistine
Ceiling, the forms of this anguished figure have lost the
resiliency of youth. As often with Michelangelo, the face
held less interest for the artist than the body. With its back-
ward twist and upward-rolling eyes, the figure suggests the
ancient Laocoon (see fig. 17.3), but the closed mouth sug-

gests inner resistance to external forces. Drill marks are
visible at the roots of the hair and among the locks. The
crisscrossing sweeps of the three-toothed chisel, employed
almost like a brush, capture the energy of Michelangelo’s
creative process. The muscles are no longer individually
defined and separated, but flow together in a manner
that obliterates the boundaries between leg and torso,
torso and arm.

For thirty-two years, Julius had served as cardinal of
San Pietro in Vincoli (St. Peter in Bonds, or Chains), where
the altar enshrines the chains with which St. Peter was
bound. As a result Julius became identified with the
church, as contemporary panegyrics and lampoons remind
us. His tomb was eventually erected there, and Raphael
made St. Peter in his Liberation of St. Peter from Prison
(see fig. 17.51) a recognizable portrait of Julius. The
Introit of the Mass celebrating this event contains a verse
from Psalm 138: “Lord, thou hast proved me, and known
me: Thou hast known my sitting down and my rising up.”
The original Latin phrase translated as “my rising up” is

17.42. MICHELANGELO. Captive. 1505-6, 1513-16. Marble,
height 7'6" (2.3 m). The Louvre, Paris. Commissioned by Pope
Julius II for his tomb (see fig. 17.40).

17.43. MICHELANGELO. Captive. 1513-16. Marble, height
7 'Vs " (2.15 m). The Louvre, Paris. Commissioned by Pope Julius II
for his tomb (see fig. 17.40).

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literally “my resurrection,” and that is what we were
intended to see — dimly through the tomb’s door in 1505,
triumphant on the second story in 1513: the pope released
from earthly life to the joy of heaven.

In 1550 Vasari wrote that the Captives were to be iden-
tified with the provinces captured by the pope, while
Michelangelo’s pupil Ascanio Condivi said they were the
Liberal Arts held captive at the pope’s death. An alterna-
tive explanation is that these figures are being held pris-
oner by sin and that, by the example of St. Peter, they can
appeal for the deliverance promised by the Victories in
the niches. The herms or termini , symbols of death, were
bound to the Captives by narrow bands of cloth, and the
Latin word vincula , the source for vinculi in the name of
the church, can be translated as “bands.”

In both the 1505 and the 1513 versions, the tomb would
have been an unprecedented combination of architecture
and sculpture, rich in its complexity, powerful in its strug-
gling figures, compelling in its suggestion of the torment of
earthly existence and the promise of heavenly release.

And — in the end — it would have been transparently simple
in its message. But the grandness of the conception meant
that it was not to be: money, time, and historical circum-
stances led to a pallid wall tomb several decades later.

Raphael in Rome

While Michelangelo was at work on the first campaign of
the Sistine Ceiling, the young Raphael arrived in Rome —
exactly when or why we are not sure. His style appealed to
the pope, who stopped the work he had commissioned
from the more conservative painter Sodoma and turned
over the decorating of his Vatican apartments (the Stanze ,
or rooms) to Raphael (fig. 17.44). The first room to be
painted, from 1509 to 1511, was the Stanza della Seg-
natura (Room of the Signature; figs. 17.45-17.49), named
after the highest papal tribunal, whose judgments require
the pope’s signature. Leaving the ceiling ornamentation
that Sodoma had started largely intact, Raphael had walls
of brick built over the pre-existing (and perhaps unfin-
ished) frescoes of the walls, covering some of the decora-
tion at the top of the arched walls. On the new walls he
painted frescoes that set forth in their subjects the new
ideals of Julius’s reign. It is typical of the High Renaissance
interest in simplifying and synthesizing that the subjects of
the four walls of the Stanza della Segnatura — Poetry,
Justice/Law, Theology, and Philosophy — encompass all the
major areas of human learning. The first to be carried out
was the scene popularly known as the Disputa (see figs.
17.46, 17.49), in which Raphael used clouds and figures to
suggest the apse of a church. The subject, which might
better be called simply “Theology,” is an exposition of the
doctrine of the Eucharist, with Raphael’s invention

17.44. Iconographic diagram of Raphael’s cycles for the Vatican apartments {Stanze), Rome.

A. Stanza della segnatura, 1509-11:

1. Poetry, 1510-11 (see fig. 17.45).

2. Philosophy, 1510-11 (see figs. 17.45, 17.47).

3. Fortitude, Prudence , and Temperance ; Tribonian Handing the
Law Code to Justinian; Gregory IX Approving the Decretals,
1510-11 (see fig. 17.46).

4. Disputa, 1510-11 (see figs. 17.46, 17.49).

B. Stanza d’eliodoro, 1512-14:

5. Liberation of St, Peter from Prison, 1513 (see fig. 17.51).

6. Expulsion of Heliodorus, 1512-14 (see fig. 17.52).

7. Mass of Bolsena, 1512 (see fig. 17.52).

8. Expulsion of Attila, 1513 (see fig. 17.51).

C. Stanza dell’incendio (RAPHAEL and pupils), 1514-17:

9. Victory of Leo HI.

10. Battle of Ostia .

1 1 . Fire in the Borgo.

12. Coronation of Charlemagne.

D. Stanza del costantino (workshop of RAPHAEL), 1519-25:

13. Donation of Constantine.

14. Apparition of the Cross to Constantine.

15. Victory of Constantine over Maxentius.

16. Baptism of Constantine.

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5 i 5

17.45. RAPHAEL. Poetry (left lunette) and Philosophy (right lunette), also known as the School of Athens. 1510-11. Frescoes, each 19 x 27'
(5.8 x 8.2 m). Stanza della Segnatura, Vatican, Rome. Commissioned by Pope Julius II. The popular but somewhat misleading name the School
of Athens dates back only to the eighteenth century.

emphasizing that the Church is an institution composed of
people rather than architecture. The sacrament is traced
from its origin in heaven, where God the Father, Christ, the
Virgin, and St. John the Baptist are enthroned among
saints, patriarchs, and prophets in a semicircle of clouds,
while angels fill the golden sky above. The dove of the
FJoly Spirit appears between child-angels carrying the
Gospels, while the wafer that represents the consecrated
bread of the Eucharist appears on the altar below, dis-
played in a shining monstrance. This wafer, representing
the body of Christ, marks the center of the perspective
scheme as well as the focus for the human and heavenly
activity that fills the scene. Raphael’s scheme is brilliant in

its simplicity and a powerful vision of the role of the
Church in offering answers to the discussions taking place
in the scene opposite, which represents Philosophy.

The tranquillity of the heavenly figures contrasts with
the active theologians on earth, who seem to be debating
the nature of the sacrament. At the left is Jerome, his head
bowed, contemplating his translation of the Bible, while
Gregory, a portrait of Julius II before he grew the famous
beard, gazes at the revelation upon the altar. Among the
figures at the right can be made out the standing Sixtus IV
and, with a laurel crown, Dante. Raphael endowed the
figures with a physical presence and gravity of bearing that
are new to his style, and set them in an ideal perspective

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that, as in Leonardo's Last Supper (see tig. 16.23), is not
the point of view of a person standing in front of the fresco
hut that of a colossus. These High Renaissance paintings
depict not another room but another realm..

While Raphael was painting the Di sputa, Michelangelo
continued work on the Sistine Ceiling behind locked doors.
Raphael’s newly monumental figures seem to have been his
own independent response to the expectations of Julius. At
the apex of the celestial dome, still covered with gold leaf
and enlivened with raised nodes as in Signorelli’s Orvieto
frescoes (see fig. 14.37)* vague angelic shapes begin to take
on substance along glittering, incised ray sc Before them
soar archangels, their hands linked and their drapery
billowing in the golden light. Their spiral poses, also found

in the figures below, are characteristic of Raphael’s
style throughout his career, as are die Mowing lines of
their drapery.

The medallions inserted by Raphael into Soctonia’s
ceiling decorations are related to the frescoes ol the four
walls below. An allegorical figure of Theology, for
example, is enthroned above the Disputa. Facing the
Disputa is the School of At heats, or Philosophy [see
17.45, 17.47), which is recognized by many as a culmins-
tion of the High Renaissance ideal of formal and spatial
harmony. Like the Di sputa's theologians on the opposite
wall, here the philosophers of classical antiquity are shown
similarly engaged in solemn discussion. Ln both religion
and philosophy, there are no simple answers.

17.46. RAPHAEL. Left wall: allegorical figures of Fortitude, Prudence, and Temperance , with Faith, Hope , and Charity (left lunette);
Tribonian Handing the Laiv Code to Justinian (recently attributed to Lorenzo Lotto; left of window); Gregory JX Approving the Decretals
(right of window), with portraits of Julius II as Gregory IX, and of Cardinals Giovanni de’ Medici and Alessandro Larnese (later Pope Paul 111);
right wall: Disputd ( Disputation over the Sacrament) or Theology (right lunette). 1510-11. Fresco, size of Disputa, 19 x 27' (5.8 x 8.2 m).
Stanza della Segnatura, Vatican, Rome.

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5 * 7

17.47. RAPHAEL. Philosophy , detail of fig. 17.45.

17.48. RAPHAEL. Cartoon for Philosophy, c. 1510. Charcoal, partly reworked with black chalk, on paper, 9'4" x 26'4" (2.85 x 8.04 m).
Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan.

The cartoon is made up of about 200 sheets of paper glued together (one scholar has counted 195 sheets, another 210).

518 •

THE CINQUECENTO

17.49. RAPHAEL. Disputa , detail of fig. 17.46.

The vaulted structure of the School of Athens uses the
Roman Doric order preferred by Bramante. But although
this space suggests Bramante’s designs for St. Peter’s (see
fig. 17.13), Raphael’s setting is not meant to suggest a real
building; it is a pictorial invention designed to establish a
grand classicized setting for his debaters. At left and right
statues of Apollo and Minerva — ancient gods of the arts
and wisdom — preside over the assemblage. In the center
stand Plato and Aristotle, who still today, as in the Renais-
sance, are recognized as the two greatest philosophers of
antiquity. Aristotle holds his Nichomachean Ethics , a text
that stresses the rational nature of humanity and the need
for moral behavior; his hand is placed horizontally, as if
emphasizing that the earth is the source for his observa-
tions on the nature of reality. Plato holds his Timaeus , in
which he describes the origin and nature of the universe; he
points upward to indicate that his ideas come from the
realm of the mind. At the left Socrates can be seen engaged
in argument, enumerating points on his fingers. The old
man sprawling on the steps is Diogenes. At the lower left
Pythagoras demonstrates his system of proportions on a

slate, while at the extreme right Ptolemy contemplates a
celestial globe held before him and, just to the left, Euclid
bends down to draw a circle on another slate. Euclid is a
portrait of Bramante — an appropriate choice considering
the latter’s concern with geometry and centrally planned,
domed architecture. At the right-hand edge, on the lowest
level, Raphael has painted his self-portrait looking out. He
is standing next to his portrait of Sodoma; one wonders
how much Sodoma, whose frescoes were being covered up,
appreciated the compliment. A second self-portrait of
Raphael is found in the scene on the adjacent wall, devoted
to Poetry (see fig. 17.45).

Raphael’s large ben finito (“finely-finished”) cartoon for
the lower band of figures (see fig. 17.48) reveals the care
with which he developed the relationships between them
and the interchanges of glance and gesture that create a
sense of both lively intellectual debate and aesthetic
harmony. Cartoons were usually cut up to be used to trans-
fer the design of each figure to the plaster wall in prepara-
tion for painting. As a result, most are lost. In this case a
two-cartoon process was followed. This large cartoon was

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cut into at least eight segments, and pupils or assistants
then used the spolvero technique or incising to transfer the
outlines of the figures to more simplified cartoons, called
“substitute cartoons,” which were then used to transfer the
figural design to the plaster wall. The ben finito cartoon is
divided into squares that must have matched similar lines
on the plaster wall, guaranteeing the proper placement of
each figure within the larger whole. When the ben finito
cartoon was reassembled is not known, but it or its seg-
ments would have been kept in the stanza or nearby to
remind members of the workshop of the importance of
maintaining not only the relationships between the figures
but also the chiaroscuro effects that are so important for
High Renaissance art. The cartoon’s preservation is a
testimony to the respect Raphael commanded at the time,
as it could have had no practical purpose after the fresco
was completed.

In the foreground of the School of Athens sits a lonely
man, his elbow on a marble block, his head propped on his
hand. Wrapped in his own thoughts, he holds a pen over a
piece of paper. Instead of the flowing mantles of the other
philosophers, this bearded, burly man wears the short,
hooded smock and soft boots of a sixteenth-century stone-
cutter. This figure, who has the features of Michelangelo,
does not appear in the cartoon, revealing that he was
added at the last minute, during the process of painting
(evidence from the surface of the fresco indicates that a
separate cartoon was made for the figure). Apparently,
Raphael went into the Sistine Chapel with the rest of Rome
in August 1511, experienced the new style, and decided to
add this tribute to the older artist to his own work.
Perhaps he had seen the sculptor sitting dejectedly in the
Piazza San Pietro, alongside one of the blocks for the tomb
of Julius II. At any rate, Raphael’s own style would never
be quite the same. His painted stonecutter has a massive
power not seen elsewhere in the School of Athens , nor
indeed in Raphael’s entire earlier production.

Raphael’s interest in Michelangelo’s style is also evident
in the relief that decorates the left pier. A red chalk
preparatory drawing (fig. 17.50) reveals how fully Raphael
has mastered the representation of nude men in motion.

Raphael put his discovery of Michelangelo’s style to
work in the lunette representing three of the four Cardinal
Virtues: Fortitude , Prudence , and Temperance (see fig.
17.46). The fourth, Justice, is in the ceiling roundel above,
while the three Theological Virtues — Faith , Hope , and
Charity — are represented by the putti accompanying the
allegorical figures in the lunette. All the monumentality of
the last phase of the Sistine Ceiling is here, but Raphael
avoided the tension of Michelangelo’s figures by infusing
his own sense of grace into the grand manner. The compo-
sition is unified by the flow of line that sweeps from figure

17.50. RAPHAEL. Fighting Men (study for relief sculpture in
Philosophy). 1510-11. Red chalk over leadpoint, 15 x 11"
(37.9 x 28.1 cm). Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.

to figure, and all the surfaces glow with the fresh,
blond tones and silvery light seen throughout the room.
Fortitude holds a Della Rovere oak tree, and her legs and
drapery seem to be derived from Michelangelo’s Moses.
Prudence , as in Piero della Francesca’s Urbino portrait (see
fig. 11.31), has two faces, one young, looking into a
mirror, one old and bearded, looking backward. The long
loops of Temperance's bridle continue the curves of
the composition.

The fourth wall in this stanza represents Poetry (see fig.
17.45), with the central figure of Apollo leading a band of
writers that includes Dante, Homer, and Sappho. Here
Raphael transforms the intruding window into a positive
force in the composition, changing it into a base for the
mountain of Parnassus on which the writers are gathered.

The suave classicism of Raphael’s Roman style is already
showing signs of giving way to a new, more vigorous
manner in the lunette of the Virtues in the Stanza della Seg-
natura. This dramatic, energetic phase comes to its climax
in the second of the chambers, the Stanza d’Eliodoro (figs.
17.51-17.52), apparently commissioned by Julius II in

5 2 o

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August 1511, when he still wore the beard he had grown
the preceding winter. As early as February 1512, the pope
shaved his beard because things were “at a good point.”
An early study by Raphael for one of the wall composi-
tions shows him without it. When the news of the Battle of
Ravenna, which seemed at first to be a defeat, reached
Rome on April 14, 1512, the pope apparently began to
grow his beard again; he is shown wearing it in three wall
frescoes of the Stanza d’Eliodoro, and he is still wearing it
on Michelangelo’s final version of the tomb.

On one of the window walls, Raphael painted the Mass
of Bolsena (see fig. 17.52), recounting a miracle that took
place in 1263. A Bohemian priest who did not believe in
the presence of Christ in the Eucharist was celebrating
Mass when, to his astonishment, the consecrated bread
shed drops of blood in the form of a cross, which fell on

the corporal, a cloth used in the Mass. The bloodstained
cloth, still preserved today as a relic in the Cathedral of
Orvieto (see pp. 128-33), was adored by Julius II for a full
day during his victorious march northward in 1506 .
Apparently, he attributed his success then, and the triumph
of his troops over the French after Ravenna — the news of
which reached him on June 29, 1512 — to the intervention
of this relic. In Raphael’s representation he is shown as if
observing the original event of 1263.

The compositional movement, skillfully arranged
around the off-center window, rises from a group of
mothers at the lower left to torch-bearing acolytes, the
amazed priest, and the calm pope, seen in profile with a
full beard. Below, at the right, kneel the officers of the
Swiss troops who spearheaded Julius’s triumph in 1512.
There is a greater breadth of handling here than in the

17.51. RAPHAEL. Expulsion ofAttila (left wall); Liberation of St. Peter from Prison (right wall). 1513. Fresco, base line of left wall 21'8 n
(6.6 m). Commissioned by Pope Julius II. Stanza d’Eliodoro, Vatican, Rome.

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17.52. RAPHAEL. Mass ofBolsena (right wall), 1512. Expulsion of Heliodorus (left wall). 1512-14. Fresco, base line 21' 8" (6.6 m).
Commissioned by Pope Julius II, who is seen at the far left, carried in on a portable throne. Raphael stands behind, his head below Julius’s
extended left hand. Stanza d’Eliodoro, Vatican, Rome.

Stanza della Segnatura, as well as heavier, Ionic architec-
ture and a richness of color new in Raphael's art.

The second stanza is named after the fresco that depicts
the Expulsion of Heliodorus (fig. 17.52), an incident from
the biblical book of Maccabees. One of the successors of
Alexander the Great sent the general Heliodorus to steal
the treasure of the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem. In the
midst of the raid a heavenly rider wearing gold armor
appeared upon a white horse accompanied by two youths
“notable in their strength and beautiful in their glory.” The
general dropped the treasure and fell blinded before them.
As in the Mass of Bolsena, the pope saw a parallel between
this event and his own battle to expel a group of rebellious
cardinals who had sided with the king of France. The
bearded pontiff enters the scene carried on his portable
papal throne; the bearer in the foreground with the square

beard has been identified as a portrait of either Marcanto-
nio Raimondi, whose engravings of Raphael’s composi-
tions gave them wide currency and popularity (see fig.
17.60), or Raphael’s pupil, Giulio Romano (see figs.
18.61-18.65). Raphael himself, displaying a modest beard,
is partially hidden behind the chair.

Raphael’s spiraling figures in the whirlwind group at the
right have been invested with the weight and muscular
power of Michelangelo. The disgrace of the general and
the rage of his attendants are contrasted with the inspired
anger of the celestial messengers, who float above the
pavement. Like virtually all riders on rearing horses for the
next three centuries, the celestial warrior exhibits the influ-
ence of Leonardo’s Battle of Anghiari (see fig. 16.30). As
in the Mass of Bolsena, Raphael’s architecture has changed
sharply since the School of Athens ; the masses are now

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heavier and more compact. The colors offer greater reso-
nance, the vaults of the Temple shining with a deep golden
light, and, in harmony with the Mass of Bolsena, the color
is dominated by the reds and blacks of the pope and his
entourage, against which the paler tones of the kneeling
women are deliberately contrasted.

Facing the Mass of Bolsena, Raphael painted the Liber-
ation of St. Peter from Prison (see fig. 17.51), which illus-
trates a passage from the Acts of the Apostles:

The same night Peter was sleeping between soldiers, bound
with chains: and keepers outside the door guarded the
prison. And the angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone
in the prison. Hitting Peter on the side, he awoke him, saying,
“Rise up quickly.” And the chains fell off Peter’s hands. . . .
And he went out, and followed the angel. Peter knew not
what the angel had done, and believed that he had seen a
vision (12:6-9).

Raphael’s Peter is a portrait of Julius II, for whom
Peter’s salvation was a reference to the deliverance of the
papacy from the French invader. It was while he was
praying at the Church of San Pietro in Vincoli, where the
chains that bound St. Peter are displayed, that the pope
received the news of his unexpected victory in 1512. That
night, in a re-enactment of the liberation of Peter, Julius led
a procession to Castel Sant’Angelo with more torches than
Rome had ever seen. But not long after, in 1513, probably
while Raphael was painting this fresco, the pope died,
and the subject may have taken on an additional meaning:
the liberation of the old warrior into the eternal light
of heaven.

Raphael’s prison is a massive arch built of rusticated
blocks like those Bramante was using at the time for the
new palaces for the papal administration. The grate
through which we look into the dungeon was derived from
earlier representations of John the Baptist in prison, but
the spectacular effect results from Raphael’s new interest in
and investigation of light. Light effects are everywhere:
clouds drift in front of a waning moon and torches gleam
on the armor of the guards, but the light from the angel
transcends all, filling the prison and shining in the dark
streets through which he leads the spellbound Peter.

The room is completed by a final, dramatic fresco, the
Expulsion of Attila (see fig. 17.51). This event took place
in the fifth century, when the unarmed Pope Leo I routed
the king of the Huns outside Ravenna through the mirac-
ulous intervention of Saints Peter and Paul. Raphael has
set the event before the gates of Rome as an allusion to
Julius’s expulsion of the French invaders, and perhaps even
to the deliverance of the papal city from King Louis XII,
who, in the summer of 1511, could easily have taken it and

did not. A Roman aqueduct and the half of the Colosseum
that was still standing can be seen in the distance at the
left, while at the right the advance of the barbarians is
marked by flames in the forest. The seemingly wild confu-
sion of the foreground resolves itself rapidly into a colli-
sion between the calm might of heaven at the upper left
and the impotent fury of the barbarians at the right. Riding
a mule, the pope extends one hand, and as the saints above
draw their swords, Attila turns away terrified.

The movement of the figures and the treatment of forms
and colors in this work have sometimes been described as
“Baroque” or “proto-Baroque,” referring to the exuberant
style that came to dominate Catholic Europe in the seven-
teenth century. This might almost be a work by the seven-
teenth-century Flemish painter Rubens, whose battle
scenes are, in fact, based on those of Leonardo (see fig.
16.30) and Raphael. The Expulsion of Attila was com-
pleted after the death of Julius II. It had originally been
intended that he would be shown seated on the mule, but
instead his successor, Giovanni de’ Medici, appears as Pope
Leo X, claiming for himself the miracle of Leo I.

The old pope was gone, yet Raphael had one more
chance to immortalize him. The Sistine Madonna (fig.
17.53) was the first Madonna by Raphael to be painted on
canvas, perhaps because it was intended to be portable. It
has been suggested that it was created to hang above the
bier of Julius II. The picture is certainly commemorative,
for St. Sixtus, on the left, is a portrait of Julius II, with the
shaggy beard and moustache of his last, illness-ridden
days, just as in the Liberation of St. Peter. His cope is dec-
orated with oak leaves, and an acorn crowns his tiara. At
the bottom, two putti lean on a wooden ledge and gaze
upward. The wooden ledge has been identified as the lid of
Julius’s coffin, with the papal tiara placed above his head,
as the crown still is today in royal funerals. At the right
St. Barbara gazes downward; as the patron saint of men-
at-arms, she is an appropriate pendant for Sixtus/Julius.
Because she was liberated from a tower (its battlements
can be glimpsed behind her), she is the patron saint of the
hour of death and of liberation from the earthly prison
that is the body.

The curtains are parted as if to reveal the Madonna
walking toward us, holding the Christ Child. Mother and
child look upon us with eyes of unusual size, depth, and
luminosity. Mary’s pose is identical with one conceived by
Michelangelo for the design of the tomb of Julius II (see
fig. 17.40). Perhaps the notion of the floating Virgin was
proposed by Julius to both artists. Another possibility is
that it was developed by Michelangelo in 1505, not long
after the completion of Fra Bartolommeo’s Vision of St.
Bernard (see fig. 16.51) and, like many of Michelangelo’s
ideas, later influenced Raphael.

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17.53. RAPHAEL. Sistine Madonna.
1513. Canvas, 8'8V x6’5" (2.7 x 1.9 m).
Gemaldegalerie, Dresden. Commissioned
by Pope Julius II for S. Sisto, Piacenza.

In the nineteenth century, Raphael’s Sistine Madonna
became a popular representation of ideal motherhood,
while in the late twentieth century the two somewhat
nonchalant putti were widely reproduced as examples of
typical childish behavior. The Sistine Madonna , in its rising
and descending curves, its subtle balancing of masses, its
rich tonalities of gold and green, gray and blue, and its air
of peace and fulfillment, is one of Raphael’s most memo-
rable creations, and its popularity is well deserved. No one
could have predicted at the time of his arrival in Rome,
fresh from absorbing the ideas of Leonardo and Michelan-
gelo in Florence, that in a few years Raphael would be the
great master at work here, commanding the full authority
of the High Renaissance style.

RAPHAEL’S LATER PORTRAITS. The sitter for
the portrait known today as the Donna Velata ( Veiled
Woman ; fig. 17.54) may have inspired the figure of the
Virgin in the Sistine Madonna. The manner in which the
woman looks out toward us builds on Leonardo’s innova-
tion in the Mona Lisa (see fig. 16.29). The painting’s rich,
glowing color suggests that Raphael was interested in the
colorism of Venice. There is no record that he traveled to
Venice, but in 1511 Sebastiano del Piombo (see pp.
531-34) brought to Rome a personal variation of the
Venetian style. Venetian influence may well explain the
rich color chords of the frescoes in Julius’s second stanza
and the dazzling white-and-gold drapery of this portrait,
not to mention the depth of the sitter’s dark eyes and

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chestnut hair, the soft glow of the stones in the necklace,
and the luminous pearl hanging from the veil. In its asym-
metrical placing, this jewel brings all the other ellipses of
the composition into relationship with each other. Simul-
taneously simple and complex, Raphael’s composition
offers yet another example of his ability to create variety
within synthesis.

The portrait of Baldassare Castiglione (fig. 17.55) is also
typical of the moment of balance Raphael achieved at this
time in Rome. As we have seen, Castiglione’s Book of the
Courtier established the qualities expected of an ideal
gentleman in the High Renaissance (see pp. 464-66). In
addition, the book offered a new interpretation of the role
of women in society: Castiglione’s nobil donna was a
woman of the court, educated in ancient languages and,
like men, with many “virtues of the mind.” Castiglione
was a friend of Raphael, who here represented him with
the nposo, or inner calm, that the author deemed essential
for a gentleman. The picture has been cut at the bottom,
but old copies show it with the folded hands in their
entirety. If it were complete, the appearance of harmony
and restraint would be even more impressive. The black,
white, and gray of the garments embody the sobriety and
restraint preached by Castiglione to a society that was
reacting against the flamboyant colors of late Quattro-
cento dress. Raphael, however, created a resonant coloris-
tic effect by placing this monochromatic scheme against

17.54. RAPHAEL. Donna Velata ( Veiled Woman . c. 1513
Canvas, 33V2 x 23V2" (85 x 60 cm). Pitti G alien. Florence.

the golden gray of the background, which is reflected m
warm highlights on the richly painted sleeves.

The death of Julius II brought Michelangelo's boyhood
acquaintance Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici, second son ©I
Lorenzo the Magnificent, to the papal throne as Leo X.
The new pope — an easygoing, luxury-loving, corpulent
man only thirty-eight years old at the time of his election—
had little interest in Michelangelo. “E troppo terribile,**
said the pope, “non si puol pratichare chon lui” (“He is
too violent; one can’t deal with him”). Commissions in the
Vatican went chiefly to Raphael and his increasing
entourage. Leo provided a relaxed atmosphere, and the
Vatican was filled not only with artists, poets, philoso-
phers, and musicians, but also with dancers, animal

17.55. RAPHAEL. Baldassare Castiglione. c. 1515. Canvas,
32V4 x 26V2" (82 x 67 cm). The Louvre, Paris.

Rembrandt once tried to acquire this painting at auction. The
bidding went out of his reach, but he never forgot the dignity of
Raphael’s composition, and twice did his own self-portrait in the
pose of Raphael’s Castiglione.

5 1 5

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tamers, and clowns. Pious pilgrims from northern Europe
were shocked by the appearance of the pope and his cardi-
nals in hunting dress and would have been outraged had
they attended Vatican ceremonies, including funerals and
beatifications, at which the Olympian deities were
extolled. The pontiff, who dropped the aggressive political
policy of his predecessor, seems to have had little interest
in his spiritual mission and no inkling of how dangerous
the challenges led by Martin Luther would be to the
Catholic Church.

A few years after his accession, the pope sat for a group
portrait in which Raphael demonstrated a searching analy-
sis of character (fig. 17.56). The pope is not occupied with
affairs of state but with antiquarian erudition and the
delight of possession. He sits before a table where he has
been perusing a splendid Trecento illuminated manuscript
so accurately represented that the original, still preserved,
has been identified. Beside the manuscript rests a silver bell
with gold top and gold borders, covered with classical vine
scrolls. Both manuscript and bell are rendered with such
precision that we wonder if Raphael used a magnifying
glass like the one held by the pope. To the left stands the
pope’s cousin, Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici, son of the mur-
dered Giuliano and subsequently Pope Clement VII. The
pope’s nephew. Cardinal Luigi de’ Rossi, stands behind
him to the right. The three gazes cross but do not connect,
creating a sense of tension that is increased by the disso-
nance between the warm orange-reds of the tablecloth and
cardinals’ attire and the cool, purplish-crimson of the
pope’s cope and hat. The pope’s puffy countenance is
rendered, like his shapely hands, with striking fidelity. The
polished brass sphere on the chair contains a distorted
reflection of the room, a demonstration of technical skill
similar to examples found in earlier Flemish paintings, but,
although one can make out a window that lights the scene,
the figure of the painter in the reflection is reduced to a few
vague vibrations.

Under Leo X, Raphael rose to a level of power and
wealth not previously enjoyed by any Italian artist. At
Bramante’s death in 1514, Raphael became papal architect
and was charged with continuing the construction of St.
Peter’s. At the same time, he was showered with commis-
sions for Madonnas, portraits, frescoes, and mosaics. He
was asked to paint two more stanze and to design the dec-
orations of other rooms in the Vatican, including a loggia
built by Bramante and a loggetta and bathroom for Cardi-
nal Bibbiena, one of Leo X’s friends. Raphael meanwhile
directed the construction of new buildings, including at
least one church and one palace, and a villa for Cardinal
Giulio de’ Medici (see fig. 17.61). He was also appointed
Superintendent of Antiquities — the first such position to be
documented — and given power over excavations in the

17.56. RAPHAEL. Pope Leo X with Cardinals Giulio de' Medici
and Luigi de 3 Rossi, c. 1517. Panel, 5'Vi" x 3 1 1 1 " (1.54 x 1.2 m).
Uffizi Gallery, Florence. Originally owned by Pope Leo X.

Evidence suggests that during the Renaissance the presence of a
portrait could substitute for a missing individual. At the wedding of
Lorenzo di Piero de’ Medici, Duke of Urbino, and Madeleine de la
Tour d 5 Auvergne, a niece of Francis I, on September 8, 1518, this
portrait was placed behind the table where the bride was seated to
compensate for the missing pope and cardinals.

papal dominions. One of his projects was a map of ancient
Rome that identified the monuments known at the time.

RAPHAEL’S WORKSHOP. To keep up with his
commitments, Raphael employed assistants, including two
masters named Giulio Romano and Perino del Vaga. On
occasion, additional painters were called in to help. As a
result, the execution of Raphael’s designs is at times
uneven and the work of less skilled pupils painfully
evident. Even some of Raphael’s contemporaries, in an era
indulgent toward the workshop system, deplored these
lapses. There is evidence that Raphael sometimes asked his
pupils to work up compositions on the basis of small
sketches or even verbal directions. Some of these are

5 2 6

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preserved, with an occasional possible correction from
Raphael, but since they seldom correspond exactly to
the finished work, the master must have stepped in at
some point.

Under the pressures exerted upon Raphael in the seven
years between 1513 and the artist’s untimely death in
1520, it is surprising that any substantial proportion of the
finished paintings could have come from his brush, and yet
in the most important commissions more than half the
surface is by him. Most of the detailed life studies,
however, are by his pupils, who then presumably enlarged
the approved model into a full-scale cartoon and carried
out the preliminary painting. Only by this system of pre-
planning the design and execution of paintings was it pos-
sible for Raphael to carry out so much himself, on such a
grand scale, and with the freshness of original creation.

THE SISTINE TAPESTRIES. The grandest of the
pictorial projects assigned to Raphael in this period was a
series of ten tapestries, for which he produced ten full-scale
cartoons in color as guides for tapestry weavers in Flanders
(see figs. 17.57-17.59). The finished tapestries, represent-
ing scenes from the Acts of the Apostles, were a prestigious
commission, for they were for the lower walls of the Sistine
Chapel and covered approximately 1,200 square feet (112
square meters). They completed the iconographic cycle
that depicted the Lives of Moses and Christ, the ancestry
of Christ, the prophets and sibyls who foretold the coming
of Christ, and scenes from Genesis (see fig. 14.18 for
a diagram showing where the tapestries were hung in
the chapel).

Raphael certainly understood that his compositions
would be on display at the center of papal power in a
complex decorated by Botticelli, Perugino, Signorelli,
Ghirlandaio, and Michelangelo. While so exalted a desti-
nation probably did not cause him to alter his style, it did
inspire him to devote his energies — and probably those of
his whole shop as well — to the development of these
figural compositions. Tapestries were much more expen-
sive than frescoes or oil paintings (see pp. 155-56), and
Raphael must have been aware that his series would have
an elite status within the chapel’s historic decoration.
Unfortunately, the tapestries based on Raphael’s designs
are seldom displayed in the Sistine Chapel today.

Raphael’s tapestries combine large, dramatic figures
with backgrounds featuring a landscape setting or the new
architecture of the High Renaissance. His compositions
became famous and were reproduced in additional series
of tapestries in later centuries, and in engraved copies as
well. As a result, they became the most influential of his
creations. They provided inspiration for such later artists
as Nicolas Poussin, Domenichino, Jacques-Louis David,

and Jean-Dominique Ingres. The original cartoons were
cut into strips for the convenience of the weavers. Eventu-
ally three were lost. The other seven were acquired bv King
Charles I of England in 1630, but they were not remounted
and exhibited as works of art until 1699.

The cartoons were painted in a glue-based watercolor
over Raphael’s charcoal drawings, which are often still
visible through the applied color. Some of the painting was
executed by pupils, especially Giulio Romano, probably
under Raphael’s direct supervision, but much of the color
seems to have been laid on by Raphael himself, and in
certain areas the beauty and emotional fire of his mature
style come through to us unaltered. Heads, drapery, land-
scape, and even, at times, architecture are painted with a
new sketchy freedom that may have been related to ancient
Roman painting techniques. Perhaps Raphael’s immersion
in antiquity had brought him into contact with Roman
first-century painting.

But there are other sources as well. Raphael closely
studied Masaccio’s frescoes (see fig. 8.7), reviving Masac-
cio’s method of enhancing the physical bulk and psycho-
logical presence of his figures by enveloping them in
voluminous mantles. Raphael may have revisited Florence
briefly in 1515, just before embarking on the tapestry
cycle. To an artist with Raphael’s sense of history, it may
have seemed appropriate to return to Masaccio’s images,
in which the barefoot apostles had been invested with such
dignity and power.

Raphael set the average height of a standing foreground
figure at approximately 8 feet, more than two-thirds the
total height of the pictorial field. To keep the figures large
in comparison with their setting, they are set in front of
massive architecture that is cut off at the top by the frame;
breaks here and there allow us to see, in the middle dis-
tance, the full classical order. The figures’ heroic propor-
tions combine with the restricted space and the realism of
Raphael’s physical types to create yet another Renaissance
vision of ennobled humanity. Unlike that of Michelangelo’s
ceiling, however, this ideal race is neither nude nor pre-
dominantly male: in Raphael’s designs, the man and
woman in the street are raised to heroic stature, rough gar-
ments, bare feet, and all.

In the Healing of the Lame Man (fig. 17.57), the group
of figures is centralized at the Gate of the Temple, the
Porch of Solomon (Acts 3:1-11). In the cartoon, St. Peter
lifts the lame man by the left hand, instead of the right, as
in the text, because Raphael knew that in the tapestry the
composition would be reversed; for the same reason St.
Peter blesses with his left. The setting is surprising and has
even been called proto-Baroque in its vibrancy of form,
light, and color. Apostles, mothers, children, and cripples
move between spiral columns that reveal Raphael’s interest

THE HIGH RENAISSANCE IN ROME

5 2 7

17.57. RAPHAEL. Healing of the Lame Man. 1515-16. Tapestry cartoon, watercolor over charcoal on paper, 11'3" x 17'7" (3. 4x5. 4 m).
Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Commissioned by Pope Leo X Medici for the tapestries for the Sistine Chapel.

Raphael’s cartoons are the earliest surviving examples of tapestry cartoons on paper; it took him and his workshop a little more than a year to
complete the ten cartoons. The cost of the cartoons and the weaving of the ten tapestries was 16,000 ducats, more than five times the amount
paid to Michelangelo for painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling.

in historical correctness, for the screen before the chancel
of Old St. Peter’s had been formed by a group of Late
Antique spiral columns that were believed to have come
from the Temple of Solomon, although in actuality they
were probably brought to Rome in the fourth century CE
from Syria. Since it was believed that Christ had leaned
against one of these columns to rest while teaching, in the
Cinquecento people supposedly possessed by demons tied
themselves to it in an effort to effect a cure. These columns
were removed during the construction of Bramante’s St.
Peter’s and eventually relocated in various parts of the new
building. In the original columns, spiral fluting alternates
with vine scrolls and putti, an unusual combination
retained by Raphael, who apparently found pictorial
excitement in the contrasting motifs. The columns’ pulsat-
ing contours contrast with the other forms, especially the
broad outlines of St. Peter’s cloak.

While the cartoons bring us close to Raphael and to the
workings of his studio, we must remember that the goal of

this exercise was the production of a series of tapestries; it
is only an accident of history that some of the cartoons
survive. Looking at the tapestry woven after Raphael’s lost
cartoon of the Conversion of St. Paul (fig. 17.58), we see
the composition as Raphael intended and not reversed as
in the cartoon. Raphael’s interpretation of the scene is
dramatic, with Saul’s horse running away, Christ appear-
ing in the sky in a flash of light accompanied by puttf and
soldiers rushing into the scene in astonishment. In the
figure of Saul, Raphael demonstrated both his skill in com-
posing the body and his ability at foreshortening. The
monochromatic scenes in the lower border are designed to
resemble bronze reliefs, but they glitter with the silver-gilt
thread that predominates in these areas. Some of these
border scenes refer to the life of Pope Leo X.

Perhaps because of its balance of figural and architec-
tural masses, St. Paul Preaching at Athens (fig. 17.59)
became the most widely imitated of the cartoons. St. Paul,
raising his hands, reminds his listeners of their altar to the

528 *

THE CINQUECENTO

unknown God: “Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship,
him declare I unto you” (Acts 17:23). The statue of Mars
to which Paul is referring is seen from the back. The Athe-
nians listen, some with quiet conviction, others greatly
disturbed. In the heavy-set soldier directly behind the
preaching apostle, the features of Leo X can be recognized.
The commanding figure of St. Paul is derived from Masac-
cio’s St. Peter in the Tribute Money , St Peter Baptizing the
Neophytes , and the Raising of the Son of Theophilus (see
figs. 8.9, 8.1, 8.16). The dramatic central group, their
bodies twisted, the folds of their draperies agitated as by a

storm, is one of the finest passages from Raphael’s later
period. The man and woman at the lower right, like the
two putti at the left of the Healing of the Lame Man, show
the style of Giulio Romano.

The architecture here is noteworthy. The round temple
is a tribute to Bramante (see fig. 17.9), and the unfinished
rusticated buildings recall the ground floor of Bramante’s
Palazzo Caprini (see fig. 17.19). The patterns of the reced-
ing arcade produce a kind of checkerboard of light and
dark, an unexpected demonstration of Raphael’s interest
in geometry. The severe grandeur of the architecture is

17.58. RAPHAEL (design). Conversion of St Paul. c. 1517—21. Wool and silk tapestry with silver-gilt threads,

16'2 x h" x 17'8V2 m (4.84 x 5.4 m). Pinacoteca, Musei Vaticani, Rome. Commissioned by Pope Leo X.

The tapestries were woven in Brussels in the workshop of Pieter van Aelst. One was completed by 1517 and a total of seven
were completed in time to be hung in the Sistine Chapel for Christmas 1519. Three others must have arrived shortly before
Leo s death in 1521, for the inventory made just after his death lists a total of ten tapestries. The cartoons were not returned
to Italy after the pope’s set of tapestries was woven, and they played an important role in bringing Italian High Renaissance
art to northern Europe. Tapestries, being woven, are often somewhat irregular in shape, as is evident in our illustration.

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529

17.59. RAPHAEL. St. Paul Preaching at Athens. 1515-16. Tapestry cartoon, watercolor over charcoal on paper, 11'3" x 14'6" (3.4 x 4.4 m).
Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Commissioned by Pope Leo X Medici for the tapestries for the Sistine Chapel.

contrasted with shaggy, ivy-covered towers in the back-
ground that tell us more about Cinquecento Rome than
they do about ancient Athens.

. This expensive series of tapestries was one of the legacies
of Pope Leo X. But when he died in 1521, the papacy
was bankrupt and the tapestries had to be pawned to
help pay for the gathering of cardinals required to elect
his successor.

LATER DEVELOPMENTS. Many of Raphael’s
compositions gained wide currency in Europe through
engravings by Marcantonio Raimondi (1487-1534), who
worked exclusively for Raphael between about 1510 and
the artist’s death in 1520. Marcantonio had been inspired

to take up the engraving technique when he saw and pur-
chased prints by the German artist Albrecht Diirer, which
he then studied and counterfeited, using Dlirer’s signature.
(Diirer complained to the Signoria of Venice, who agreed
that Marcantonio would not be allowed to use the signa-
ture in the future.) Marcantonio reproduced finished
works by Raphael and also made prints after designs that
were expressly produced to be engraved, as is the case with
the Judgment of Paris (fig. 17.60), an elaborate interpreta-
tion that includes a number of characters beyond the
required figures of Paris and the three goddesses. The com-
position of three figures seated on the ground to the right
was the basis for Manet’s 1863 Dejeuner sur Pberbe , one
of the nineteenth century’s most controversial paintings.

530

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17.60. MARC ANTONIO RAIMONDI, after RAPHAEL . Judgment of Paris, c. 1517-20. Engraving, \\Vi x Y7 l k" (29.2 x 43.4 cm).
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Gift of J. G. Russell Allen.

Vasari included a chapter on “Marcantonio and Other Engravers of Prints” in his Vite, in which he wrote that, “having arrived in Rome,
[Marcantonio] engraved on copper a most lovely drawing by Raffaello da Urbino, wherein was the Roman Lucretia killing herself, which he
executed with such diligence and in so beautiful a manner, that Raffaello, to whom it was straightway carried by some friends, began to think of
publishing in engravings some designs of works by his hand, and then a drawing that he had formerly made of the Judgment of Paris, wherein, to
please himself, he had drawn the Chariot of the Sun, the nymphs of the woods, those of the fountains, and those of the rivers ...; and when he had
made up his mind, these were engraved by Marc’ Antonio in such a manner as amazed all Rome.”

The prestige of Raphael during the nineteenth century was
enormous and Manet must surely have enjoyed knowing
that his critics were unaware of the source for his design.

Raphael’s most ambitious architectural undertaking —
except for St. Peter’s, on which little was accomplished —
was a villa designed for Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici and
known today as the Villa Madama (fig. 17.61). The origi-
nal plan called for a two-towered facade facing St. Peter’s,
a circular courtyard, domed and porticoed rooms, displays
of ancient and modern sculpture, gardens exploiting the
slope of the hillside in descending levels, fountains and
pseudo-rustic grottoes drawing upon the abundant springs
in the area, as well as many delightful fantasies and inven-
tions. The project continued after Raphael died in 1520,
but the death of Pope Leo X in 1521 diverted Cardinal
Giulio’s attention to the problem of Medicean control of
Florence. Even after his accession to the papacy as Clement
VII in 1523, little more work was done on the villa.

The surviving fragment includes the great hall, which,
with its single-story arches, groin vaults, and central dome,
all opening out through arches to the garden, was a new

invention that gracefully harmonized the architectural
space with nature outside. Its delicate stucco grotteschi and
paintings were carried out after Raphael’s death by his
pupils Giulio Romano and Giovanni da Udine, and by his
associate, the Sienese painter-architect Baldassare Peruzzi.
The cardinal instructed the painters that he did not care
what the subjects were, so long as they were recognizable
and one would not have to add explanatory inscriptions,
like the painter who wrote, “This is a horse.” Ovid would
do as well as anything else, the cardinal said, but the
Old Testament was suitable only for the loggia of the
pope. Much of the decoration includes Medicean symbols
and motifs.

THE TRANSFIGURATION. Cardinal Giulio de’
Medici also commissioned two large altarpieces from
Raphael and Sebastiano del Piombo (c. 1485-1547), a
Venetian artist who had moved to Rome and affiliated
himself with Michelangelo. The two artists may have inter-
preted this as a kind of competition. Sebastiano turned for
assistance to Michelangelo, who provided drawings for the

THE HIGH RENAISSANCE IN ROME

5 3 i

central figures of Christ and Lazarus in Sebastiano’s
Raising of Lazarus (fig. 17.62). Raphael may have decided
to try to best Sebastiano by incorporating two sequential
biblical scenes into his painting: the Transfiguration of
Christ and the Healing of the Boy Possessed by Demons
(fig. 17.63; Matthew 17:1-20).

Sebastiano’s Raising of Lazarus demonstrates the kind
of rhetorical High Renaissance narrative drama that devel-

oped in the wake of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling
frescoes and Raphael’s works for the stanze . Christ’s
energy is implicit in both his bold contrapposto stance and
his dramatic gestures: with his left hand he points com-
pellingly toward Lazarus while with his right he seems to
be drawing the man back into the world of the living.
Lazarus responds by slowly pulling off the bands with
which his body had been wrapped in the tomb. His

17.61. RAPHAEL. Medici Villa (now known as Villa Madama), Rome, interior, c. 1515-21 (decorations by Giulio Romano, Giovanni da
Udine, and Baldassare Peruzzi). Commissioned by Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici.

The function of the villa, which is located on the slopes of Montemario outside the entrance to Rome from the north, was to serve as
a residence for high-ranking visitors to the papal court. During Fascist renovations an inappropriate marble floor, seen here, was added.

5 3 *

THE CINQUECENTO

vigorous physique is Michelangelesque. The pose and
gesture of every figure was carefully studied to demon-
strate the excitement that courses through the crowd in
response to this unprecedented miracle.

While Sebastiano’s painting offers a single, highly
focused narrative event, in Raphael’s altarpiece our eye
moves from figure to figure as we try to take in two
complex subjects. The story of the Transfiguration tells
how Peter, James, and John accompanied Christ to the top
of a high mountain. Suddenly Moses and Elijah appeared,
Jesus’ countenance shone with light, and his raiment
became “white and glistening.” Then they heard the voice
of God saying, “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well
pleased.” While this scene had been represented by earlier
artists, it was rare to show the subsequent event described
in the Bible — the demoniac boy whom the apostles could

17.62. SEBASTIANO DEL PIOMB O. Raising of Lazarus.
1517-19. Oil on canvas transferred from wood, 12' 6 " x 9' 6 "
(3.81 x 2.896 m). National Gallery, London. Commissioned by
Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici for the Cathedral of Narbonne, where
he had become bishop in 1515.

not cure in Christ’s absence, but whom he healed on his
return. Combining the two was unprecedented.

In the upper section Raphael convincingly represented
the powerful drama inherent in the subject: the radiance of
divinity and the wind of the spirit pull Christ upward,
support the prophets, and momentarily blind the apostles
with the intensity of revelation. Raphael’s spiral movement
sweeps through the figures: St. James is struck to the
ground as if by lightning, St. Peter writhes in torment, and
St. John is convulsed by divine energy, one hand groping in

17.63. RAPHAEL. Transfiguration of Christ and Healing of
the Boy Possessed by Demons . 1516-20. Panel, 13 f 4 '* x 9'2"

(4 x 2.8 m). Pinacoteca, Musei Vaticani, Rome. Commissioned
by Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici for the Cathedral of Narbonne.

The cardinal sent a copy of Raphael’s painting to Narbonne and
kept the original for himself, later placing it on the high altar of
S. Pietro in Montorio in Rome. Napoleonic troops stole the painting
in 1797 and took it to Paris, but it was returned in 1816, after
Napoleon’s defeat.

THE HIGH RENAISSANCE IN ROME * 533

the air, the other hiding his eyes from the light. Raphael
here attempted to demonstrate what it might be like if the
full force of God’s power were to be experienced by
humans. The different manner in which each of the three
apostles responds to this revelation of divinity can be
understood as yet another tribute to the Renaissance
notion of individualism.

We might say that the picture was designed as a giant
figure eight. The lower portion was partly executed by
pupils, especially Giulio Romano, who did many of the
preliminary figure drawings. The possessed boy and his
family are typical of Giulio’s style in their highly detailed
execution, but the figure of St. Andrew at the lower left,
turning from his book in amazement as the others argue or
point, is not, and this group is surely by Raphael. The
figure of St. Andrew, with his outstretched hand and his
foot projecting through the picture plane, not to mention
the intense contrasts of light and dark around him, would
provide a vital model for the young Caravaggio in Rome
seventy years later.

The coloristic brilliance of both Sebastiano’s and
Raphael’s paintings demonstrates the impact of Michelan-
gelo’s new color scheme at the Sistine Chapel. The lower
half of Raphael’s painting displays intense reds, blues,
yellows, greens, and pinks against the encompassing dark.
In contrast, the color of the upper portion may again
testify to an interest in Venetian art, but since every new
influence Raphael adopted rapidly became his own, the
blue and gold of Christ’s garment are integral to the trans-
figuring radiance of the theme. Raphael may in fact have
been responding here to the Venetian colorism of Sebas-
tiano. The latter’s painting, however, is unified by dark
shadows in the manner pioneered by Leonardo da Vinci.

Raphael’s interpretation of the Transfiguration theme may
be related to his frequent attendance at the meetings of a
group of priests and laymen called the Oratory of Divine
Love. The goal of the movement was the reform of the
Church from within, not by means of a monastic order, but
through the parishes. The program was simple: common
prayer and preaching, frequent Communion (which was a
rarity at that time), and works of neighborly love. One of the
founders, Giovanni Carafa, eventually became Pope Paul
IV. Together with another co-founder, Gaetano da Thiene,
later canonized as St. Cajetan, Carafa spread the doctrines
of the group into northern Italy. Perhaps this quiet, self-
effacing group provided a source for Raphael’s mysticism.
Gaetano was often prostrate in ecstasy for hours before the
Eucharist — like Raphael’s three apostles before the trans-
figured Christ — and he preferred to celebrate Mass only at
an altar in a chapel where the already consecrated sacra-
ment was reserved for the veneration of the faithful. In this
way, he could obtain, as he put it, “greater light and heat.”

On Good Friday, April 6, 1520, after a brief illness,
Raphael died at the age of thirty-seven. At his request,
the funeral was held in the Pantheon in Rome, with the
unfinished Transfiguration hung above his bier, and he
was subsequently buried there. Raphael’s death was widely
mourned, and with him passed that moment in Renais-
sance art when the ideals of classical antiquity and
the aspirations of Christianity seem to have coexisted
in harmony.

THE VILLA FARNESINA. Before he died, Raphael
had participated with a number of other artists in one of
the most delightful artistic undertakings of the Roman
High Renaissance: the building of a palace, known to us
today as the Villa Farnesina (fig. 17.64) because at a later
date it was bought by the Farnese family and connected to
the Palazzo Farnese by a bridge across the Tiber (see fig.
18.57). In use by autumn 1511, the palace was built for
Agostino Chigi, a Sienese banker who established the
headquarters of his far-flung financial empire in Rome,
and who underwrote the conquests of Pope Alexander VI
and Cesare Borgia, the ambitious projects of Julius II, and
the pleasures of Leo X. From its very purpose — a retreat
for Chigi’s beloved Imperia, the most celebrated courtesan
in Rome — down to the details of decoration and imagery,
the palace is thoroughly pagan.

The Farnesina ensemble was coordinated by Raphael’s
Sienese associate, the architect and painter Baldassare
Peruzzi (see p. 586). The plan, adopted from ancient
Roman villas, is a rectangle with projecting wings opening
onto gardens through a once-open loggia (fig. 17.65). The
two stories are articulated with Tuscan pilasters. No
balustrades or balconies alter this severity, but the walls
were once decorated with delicate sgraffito ornamentation.
Today only the modeled terra-cotta frieze crowning the
second story hints at the decoration that once covered
the villa.

The frescoes that embellish the interior are by many of
the finest painters then working in Rome. Peruzzi, who
carried out the cycles for two major rooms and most of
a third, was joined by Sebastiano del Piombo, Sodoma,
and Raphael, who brought several pupils, including Giulio
Romano. Imperia died before she could enjoy many of
the splendors of her villa, but Chigi consoled himself
with Andreosia, by whom he had four children whom
Leo X baptized before Chigi finally married her, with
Leo officiating.

The great hall of the Farnesina, the Sala di Galatea (fig.
17.66), is lined with a cycle of frescoes unprecedented in
the completeness of their ancient imagery. The gods and
heroes turn up in surprising relationships that can be
explained by their translation into their stellar and plane-

5 3 4

THE CINQUECENTO

17.64. BALDASSARE PERUZZI. Villa Famesina (originally Palazzo Chigi), Rome, garden facade. 1509-11. Commissioned by Agostino
Chigi (see figs. 17.65-17.73).

17.65. BALDASSARE PERUZZI. Plan of the ground floor of the
Villa Famesina, Rome. 1509-11.

A. Sala di Galatea.

B. Loggia of Psyche.

tary equivalents. The positions of these equivalents on the
ceiling preserved the configuration of the heavens above
central Italy on the night of December 1, 1466, the pre-
sumed birth date of the patron, whose horoscope is thus
represented in the ceiling panels.

To embody this intellectual conceit, Peruzzi employed a
pictorial style that is at once artificial, elegant, and beguil-
ing. One of the two long central panels shows the constel-
lation Perseus (fig. 17.67), with the hero about to
decapitate Medusa, while winged Fame blows her trumpet
in the direction of the Chigi arms, modeled in stucco in the
center of the ceiling. This arrangement of figures in the
foreground, silhouetted against a background of stars, dis-
plays the refinement of an ancient cameo; possibly it was
inspired by one.

The walls of the Sala di Galatea were to be decorated by
a variety of painters with frescoes representing divinities of
earth and sea, but only Sebastiano del Piombo’s Polyphe-
mus (not illustrated) and Raphael’s Galatea (fig. 17.68)
were ever painted. According to Raphael’s own account,
he based his image of the sea nymph not on any single
beautiful woman but on an idea of female perfection
created by combining elements he had seen in various
women. The vigorous contrapposto pose is based on
Michelangelo’s unfinished figure of St. Matthew (see fig.
16.41), of which Raphael had made a drawing.

Very little of Ovid’s text on Galatea seems to have inter-
ested Raphael. He omitted Galatea’s sixteen-year-old lover,

THE HIGH RENAISSANCE IN ROME * 535

17.66. BALDASSARE
PERUZZI. Ceiling frescoes,
c. 1511. Sala di Galatea, Villa
Farnesina, Rome.

17.67. BALDASSARE
PERUZZI. Perseus and Medusa ,
detail of fig. 17.66.

Acis, whom Polyphemus was soon to destroy, and showed
her in triumphant control of her own beauty, oblivious of
the amorous gaze of the monster Polyphemus from the
adjoining bay. Raphael had toyed with the idea of a Birth
of Venus in an earlier drawing and retained from this
subject the shell-chariot as represented by Botticelli (see
fig. 13.24), to which, however, he added curious paddle
wheels, apparently as stabilizers. Drawn by dolphins, the
chariot is accompanied by a procession that includes
tritons blowing a conch and a trumpet, sea horses, nereids,
and sirens. Although the composition is centralized, the
movement of the chariot from left to right is accented by

the movement of the winged putto in the foreground. The
sunny light emphasizes the soft flesh tones of the female
figures and the tanned musculature of the male torsos
against the green water. The deep red cloak and golden
hair of Galatea float rhythmically around and behind her.

After the grace of the Galatea , the sexual innuendos
found in the work of Sodoma (1477P-1549) in the
Farnesina bedroom come as something of a shock. In his
Marriage of Alexander and Roxana (fig. 17.69), the
relaxed bride sits on the edge of a gorgeous bed with posts
of gilded Corinthian columns, while three putti disrobe
her. Another tugs Alexander in her direction, serving maids

536 .

THE CINQUECENTO

17.68. RAPHAEL. Galatea. 1513.
Fresco, 9' 8" x 7'5 M (2.9 x 2.3 m).

Sala di Galatea, Villa Farnesina, Rome.

depart, and on the right the almost nude god of marriage,
accompanied by a torchbearer, presides over the occasion.
Luxurious in its surfaces and overripe in its coloring, this
frankly voluptuous fresco is the opposite of the moralized
mythologies of Botticelli. Yet it seems mild compared with
the erotica soon to follow, popularized after Raphael’s
death by Giulio Romano and Marcantonio Raimondi.

In the Sala delle Prospettive (fig. 17.70) on the upper
story, Peruzzi revived the perspective schemes of Melozzo
and Mantegna, possibly directly influenced by their illu-
sionistic works, which were still intact at the time (see figs.
14.24-14.25, 15.14, 15.25). The perspective was planned
to function correctly when the observer stands toward the
left of the room. The dark, veined marble piers of Peruzzi’s
frescoes and columns with gilded capitals incorporate the
actual veined marble door frames of the room. The fres-
coed architecture is so precisely painted that it is almost
impossible to distinguish where real marble ends and illu-
sion begins. Through the lofty columns one looks out to a
painted terrace that opens onto a continuous landscape.

The decoration of the Farnesina culminates in the series
of frescoes painted by Raphael’s pupils, from his sketches

and under his direction but only occasionally with his
direct intervention, in the Loggia of Psyche (figs.
17.71-17.72). Garlands of leaves, fruit, and flowers along
the groins of the vaults and around the center of the ceiling
transform the architecture into a delightful open bower.
The episodes of the story of Cupid and Psyche are seen
against a blue sky, as if through openings in the bower,
while two central scenes suggest simulated tapestries
stretched overhead. The effect of an open-air setting is
countered by the tension of the bower’s garlands and the
light tug of the tapestry awnings. Within this graceful
illusion only those incidents of the legend of Cupid
and Psyche that took place in heaven are represented.
Perhaps the others were to go on the walls, now filled by
simulated architecture, or perhaps the cycle was restricted
to these episodes.

Although the noble female figures of Raphael’s mature
imagination are sometimes weakened by his pupils’ execu-
tion, those carried out by Giulio Romano, as in the Cupid
Pointing Out Psyche to the Three Graces (fig. 17.73), are
quite grand. The figures are full of the new, sculpturesque
effects characteristic of Giulio as we have seen his style in

17.70. PERUZZI. Sala delle Prospettive, second floor, Villa Farnesina, Rome, perspective view. 1515-17.

538

THE CINQUECENTO

17.71. RAPHAEL and assistants, frescoes, Loggia of Psyche,
Villa Farnesina, Rome. 1518-19.

17.73. RAPHAEL and GIULIO ROMANO. Cupid Pointing
Out Psyche to the Three Graces. Compartment of ceiling,
Loggia of Psyche.

17.72. RAPHAEL and assistants. Psyche Received on Olympus . Eastern half of ceiling, Loggia of Psyche.

THE HIGH RENAISSANCE IN ROME

5 3 9

17.74. SEBASTIANO DEL PIOMBO. Flagellation. 1516-21. Fresco. Borgherini Chapel, S. Pietro in Montorio, Rome.
Commissioned by Pierfrancesco Borgherini.

540

THE CINQUECENTO

the Transfiguration. The unusual coloristic passages on the
back of one of the Graces must have come from Raphael’s
brush, which doubtless intervened at crucial moments in
works being painted by his pupils.

Within eight years of the completion of the last paintings
in the Farnesina, Raphael, Chigi, and Leo X were in their
tombs and the gracious and sophisticated world in which
they moved had been swept out of existence by the violent
Sack of Rome. Sebastiano del Piombo’s Flagellation in San
Pietro in Montorio (fig. 17.74), begun in 1516, admits
us to a darker world of experience. Christ, based on a
drawing that Sebastiano had requested from Michelan-
gelo, is tied to a column that stretches outside the limits of
the picture. The mural exploits the apsidal shape of the
chapel, making the wall disappear and leaving the marmo-
real Christ, painted with a mastery of anatomy, to be
assailed by a pair of figures, one seen from the front, the

other from the back. Sensitivity to such calculated compo-
sitional patterns will become more common in the course
of the sixteenth century.

A majolica plate by Francesco Xanto Avelli da Rovigo
(active 1530-1542; fig. 17.75) indicates the impact of the
style of Michelangelo on domestic culture. The theme is
taken from an obscure third-century text, History of the
World by Marcus Junianus Justinus, book 27, as Francesco
tells us in an inscription on the back that includes his sig-
nature and the date. While the reference is a learned one,
it seems to be an excuse for the representation of heavily
muscled figures in dramatic poses in the style of Michelan-
gelo. The draped figure on the left, caught in movement
with drapery fluttering, seems to be a reference to the
works of Raphael. Of the two artists who seem to have
influenced this work, it was Michelangelo who would have
the greater impact on future developments, as we shall see.

17.75. FRANCESCO XANTO AVELLI DA ROVIGO. Plate with the Sinking of the Fleet
ofSeleucus y from the Pucci Service. 1532. Tin-glazed earthenware, diameter IOV 2 1 ' (26.5 cm).
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

The moor’s head in the shield at the top reveals that this was part of a service commissioned by
the Pucci family of Florence. It was common for elaborate majolica dinnerware such as this to be
decorated with the family’s coat of arms.

THE HIGH RENAISSANCE IN ROME

54 1

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NEW DEVELOPMENTS, c. 1 5 2 0 - 5 0

T he title of this chapter reveals that the High
Renaissance style — idealized, grand, simpli-
fied, inspiring — did not last. By the third
decade of the sixteenth century, artists were
creating works that questioned or defied
High Renaissance ideals. For many decades these and
many other sixteenth-century works were grouped into a
new style known as Mannerism, based on the Italian term
maniera. The direct translation is “manner” in the sense of
personal style, but the underlying suggestion is one of
sophistication, artificiality, and refinement. The imposition
of the term Mannerism for a diverse group of works
created in various centers by different artists for unique
patrons proved to be confusing, as did attempts to define
subcategories within Mannerism, such as “Early Manner-
ism” and “the maniera .” Mannerism ultimately became
an overburdened term, with scholars unable to agree on
its meaning or even which works were most characteristic
of the style.

While Mannerism cannot be applied as a blanket identi-
fication to all the works created in Italy after the High
Renaissance, there is no doubt that some of that art can be
defined as “mannered” in the definition given above.
While the artists who formulated the High Renaissance,
like those of the Early Renaissance, had based their art on
the study of nature — even Raphael pointed out that his
ideal female figures were a compilation of features taken
from his study of real women — many post-High Renais-
sance artists were more inspired by examples drawn from
art than by nature. In many works there is a strong effect

of artifice while in others elegance and sophistication are
more important than naturalism. Such effects are espe-
cially common within the courtly cultures that flourished
in sixteenth-century Italy. As we examine the works pro-
duced at this time, the discussion of whether a particular
work is “mannered” will be undertaken when appropriate.
The more general term “Mannerism” with a capital M will
be avoided.

Given the dramatic and traumatic changes that were
occurring on the Italian peninsula, it is not surprising that
artists and patrons might have turned away from the High
Renaissance style. The state of affairs in Florence was
unfortunate and bound in time to grow worse. Since their
expulsion in 1494, the Medici had been scheming to
return, and their reinstatement in 1512 followed the sack
of nearby Prato by Spanish troops under Pope Julius II and
the expulsion of Piero Soderini, who fled into exile. While
Julius II lived, the Medici ruled Florence again under the
mild government of Giuliano, youngest brother of Cardi-
nal Giovanni. Giuliano believed in control from behind the
scenes, in the traditional manner of the Medici, leaving the
framework of the republic externally intact. Giovanni’s
elevation to the papacy as Leo X in 1513, however,
brought about a sharp change. He replaced Giuliano with
their nephew Lorenzo, who entertained sterner ideas. In
1516 the pope, having driven out the rightful duke of
Urbino, invested Lorenzo with the duchy. To the great dis-
taste of the Florentines, Lorenzo maintained a ducal splen-
dor in their midst and behaved as if he were duke of
Florence. Leo X used Lorenzo as a pawn in his dynastic

Opposite: 18.1. ANTONIO DA SANGALLO THE ELDER. Madonna di S. Biagio, Montepulciano. 1518-34, 1564 (top of tower).
Travertine (see figs. 18.54-18.55).

NEW DEVELOPMENTS, c. 1 5 2 0- 5 0

5 4 3

ambitions and married him to a French royal princess, but
she died in childbirth in April 1519, and six days later
Lorenzo followed her to an early grave. The direct male
line of Cosimo de’ Medici was thus extinct.

For four years, power in the Florentine state was exer-
cised by Leo’s cousin, Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici, who
presided over a now-sham republic. Two years after Leo
X’s death in 1521, Giulio himself became pope as Clement
VII, continuing to control Florence. It was not long before
the Florentines realized that under the Medici popes they
had lost not only their internal liberties but also their
external independence. From a position as one of the
proudest of medieval republics and the founder of the idea
of liberty in modern times, Florence had sunk to the status
of a captive province of the papacy. Commercial activity
stagnated and so did morale. Money and power were now
centered in Rome.

Michelangelo 1516 to 1533

In the midst of this discouraging picture, Michelangelo
returned to Florence at the end of 1516 to carry out an
important commission: Pope Leo X’s project for the facade
of San Lorenzo. This Medicean church had become an
important symbol of dynastic power now that the head of
the family was a duke, and became even more so once he

was allied with the royal family of France. In the year of
his death, Giuliano da Sangallo, now well over seventy,
had submitted several drawings of alternative projects for
the facade. One (fig. 18.2) masked Brunelleschi’s clerestory
and the lateral chapels along the side aisles with a two-
story temple, flanked by tall bell towers themselves topped
by tiny cruciform temples ending in pyramids supporting
orbs and crosses. A central pediment was surmounted by a
colossal statue of the enthroned Leo X flanked by saints.
The campanili recall those Bramante had designed for St.
Peter’s (see fig. 17.11), but while Bramante ’s upper stories
narrowed gradually, Giuliano’s did not. The details of Giu-
liano’s severe Doric order imitated almost exactly an order
he had drawn at the ancient Roman Basilica Emilia. This
drawing for San Lorenzo was followed by Giuliano’s
younger brother Antonio when he designed the campanili
and interior of the Madonna di San Biagio at Montepul-
ciano (see figs. 18.1, 18.54-18.55) only a few years later.
But Giuliano’s grand design missed the point of High
Renaissance composition because the effect of the whole
was derived from multiple, superimposed elements rather
than from the principle of unified dynamic growth that
infused the architecture of Leonardo and Bramante.

The commission instead went to Michelangelo, who for
three years worked on plans for the facade, which he
intended, in his own words, to be a “mirror of architecture
and sculpture of all Italy.” His planned two-story structure
was to include twelve standing figures in marble, six seated
figures in bronze, and fifteen reliefs. Michelangelo spent
many months quarrying the marble, first at Carrara, then
at Seravezza, within the boundaries of the Florentine
Republic. To reach the new quarries at Seravezza, he had
to build a road through the mountains. Although we know
all too little about the final projected appearance of the
fagade, the wooden model built to Michelangelo’s specifi-
cations survives (fig. 18.3). Within its dense and compact
structure of interlocking elements, the statues and reliefs
would probably have jutted forth from the niches and
frames, creating a dramatic interplay of masses and of
lights and darks.

18.2. GIULIANO DA SANGALLO. Design for the fagade of
S. Lorenzo, Florence. 1516. Pen on paper, 2274 x 25 V 2 " (58.1 x
64.5 cm). Gabinetto dei Disegni e Stampe, Uffizi Gallery, Florence.
Commissioned by Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici on behalf of Pope
Leo X de’ Medici.

5 44

THE CINQUECENTO

183. MICHELANGELO.
Model for the facade of
S. Lorenzo, Florence. 1517.
Wood, 7 1 x 9'4" (2.1 x 2.8 m).
Casa Buonarroti, Florence.
Commissioned by Cardinal
Giulio de’ Medici on behalf
of Pope Leo X de’ Medici.
Michelangelo made several
models for this project, one of
which, smaller than this one,
was presented to the patron
for his approval. This larger
version was made to be
followed by the builders.

THE MEDICI CHAPEL. Suddenly, in March 1520,
the contract for the facade was annulled and the marbles
abandoned, to Michelangelo’s indignation. The reason was
the death of Lorenzo in May 1519, which deprived the
facade of its principal raison d'etre. The money was now
needed for another project: a tomb chapel honoring four
Medici — the two dukes, Lorenzo and Giuliano (Duke of
Nemours, who had died in 1516), and the two brothers
who may conveniently be called the Magnifici, Lorenzo the
Magnificent (d. 1492) and Giuliano (murdered in 1478;
see p. 297). Michelangelo was the architect from the start.
The new chapel was built on the right side of the transept
so that it would be in plan, if not in elevation, a pendant
to Brunelleschi’s earlier sacristy (see figs. 6.14-6.15),
which had also been designed as a Medici burial site.
Michelangelo’s Medici Chapel is also sometimes known as
the “New Sacristy.”

The work progressed irregularly and was never com-
pleted. Some sculptures were not finished, others never
started. Nevertheless, the Medici Chapel is Michelangelo’s
only architectural-sculptural project to be realized in any-
thing approaching its entirety. The tombs and their sculp-
tures must have been designed rapidly, because by April
1521 Michelangelo was in Carrara with measured draw-
ings, ready to order the marble blocks. Letters and
sketches indicate that at first a large, free-standing monu-

ment was planned that seems to have been inspired by the
original plan for the tomb of Julius II (see fig. 17.20), with
one tomb on each of its four sides. In the final arrange-
ment, the two dukes were honored by wall tombs and the
Magnifici were relegated to a third wall, under statues of
the Madonna and saints Cosmas and Damian. This wall,
seen facing us in figure 18.4, was never completed: the
Medici Madonna (see fig. 18.7) was left unfinished, and
the disappointing statues of the patron saints were eventu-
ally made by pupils.

During the pontificate of Pope Adrian VI — a pious and
learned Dutchman who took the papacy from 1521 to
1523 between the two Medici popes, Leo and Clement —
no marble was shipped. But early in 1524, a few months
after the accession of Clement VII, the blocks began to
arrive in Florence. By March 1526, four statues were
almost finished and in June two more were begun and one
was ready to start. Four river gods to be placed in front of
the two wall tombs were never started, although we know
something of them from drawings and a model. By June
1526, Clement’s political machinations had led to hostili-
ties between the pope and the Holy Roman Emperor,
Charles V. In September, the Vatican and St. Peter’s were
attacked and plundered by the Ghibellines under Cardinal
Pompeo Colonna, who had lost the papal election in 1523.
In January 1527, the pope ordered the fortification of

NEW DEVELOPMENTS, c. 1 5 2 0-5 0

54 5

18.4. MICHELANGELO. Medici Chapel, S. Lorenzo, Florence, view of interior. 1520-34. Pietra serena , marble, plaster. Commissioned by
Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici, who later became Pope Clement VII. For the location, see fig. 6.14.

The Pantheon-like dome was originally ornamented in color by Giovanni da Udine, Raphael’s specialist in decoration, but Clement had the
decorations whitewashed.

Rome against the imperial forces. The terrible Sack of
Rome began early in the morning of May 7, 1527. After
months of unspeakable horror — looting, burning, rape,
torture, murder, desecration — the pope, a prisoner in
Castel Sant’ Angelo since June, escaped and fled to Orvieto.
Many statesmen, scholars, and members of the general
populace felt that this humiliation revealed the judgment
of God for the paganism of Medicean Rome. The tragedy
marked the end of the High Renaissance in Rome.

In contemporary sources, four intertwined themes can
be distinguished: a deep sense of collective guilt, a desire
for punishment, a need for healing, and a longing for the
restoration of order. Some of these themes can, however, be
found before the Sack of Rome. Itinerant preachers had
long predicted the ruin of the Church, and years earlier
Machiavelli had declared that “the nearer people are to the
Church of Rome ... the less religious are they. And
whoever examines the principles upon which that religion
is founded and sees how widely different ... its present

practices and application are, will judge that her ruin or
chastisement is at hand.... The evil example of the court of
Rome has destroyed all religion and piety in Italy.”

Not until October 1528 was the pope able to return,
poverty-stricken, to his burned-out and half-depopulated
capital. Florence, meanwhile, had thrown off the Medici
yoke for the third time and re-established the republic. But
in 1530 Florence was captured by a combination of papal
and imperial forces in an alliance that would force despot-
ism on most of Italy. The new Medici governor of the city
gave orders for Michelangelo’s assassination because the
artist had aided the republic in fortifying itself against
invasion. The canon in charge of San Lorenzo hid the artist
until the pope issued an order pardoning him so that he
could continue work on the Medici Chapel. This pro-
ceeded in a desultory fashion, interrupted by the artist’s
trips to Rome. Aided by Emperor Charles V, Clement
installed Alessandro de’ Medici as the first hereditary duke
of Florence. Alessandro, probably the illegitimate son of

546 .

THE CINQUECENTO

Lorenzo, duke of Urbino, but widely believed to be the son
of the pope himself, was known for his vices and cruelty.
When the pope died in 1534, Michelangelo was in Rome
and was unwilling to risk his life by returning to Alessan-
dro’s Florence. Not even after the duke’s assassination in
1537 did he go back, and only in 1545 were the statues
placed on the tombs by Michelangelo’s pupils. Only the
figures of the dukes were completed in every detail; the
four statues of the Times of Day still show passages of
rough marble.

For the architecture, Michelangelo used the Brun-
elleschian scheme but added an extra story, perhaps, in
part, to raise the windows, the principal sources of illumi-
nation, above the neighboring housetops. Michelangelo
repeated Brunelleschi’s use of pietra screna articulation
against white plaster walls, but then challenged that two-
toned architecture by the intrusion of white marble archi-
tectural forms that are. richly carved and polished.
Ostensibly enclosed by the pietra serena yet refusing to rest
easily within that framework, the white marble areas

include both the tombs and the flanking tabernacle above
the doorways, which are of unprecedented shape and sun-
enigmatic purpose. These protrude so fer beyond tU? pietra
serena pilasters that they nearly meet at the coiners.. jmtiiig
in front of what now seem to be the imprisoned Conr.mmi
capitals of the primary scheme. Through this arclrheetur^i
opposition, Michelangelo creates a sense of enerm that
makes this relatively small space somewhat claustrophobic
in effect.

The sarcophagi of the dukes (figs. 1 8.5—1 8.6) have
arched tops supporting reclining male and female figures
representing Night and Day, Dawn and Dusk. The dukes,
shown as young men in Roman armor, sit in niches in the
second story. The often-heard criticism that the Times of
Day appear to be slipping off the sarcophagi would be less
justified if the river gods, intended to lie on a platform just
off the floor, had been executed, for they would have
completed a roughly circular composition. Michelangelo’s
figures often seem to be outgrowing their enclosures —
think of the steady expansion in size of the popular iot of

18.5, 18.6. MICHELANGELO. Tomb of Giuliano de’ Medici (left), with allegorical figures of Night and Day. Tomb of Lorenzo de’ Medici
(right), with allegorical figures of Dusk and Dawn. 1520-34. Marble, height of seated figures approx. 5 TO" and 5'8" (1.8 and 1.7 m). Medici
Chapel, S. Lorenzo, Florence.

NEW DEVELOPMENTS, c. 1520- 5 0

5 4 7

the Sistine Ceiling — and a study of the sketches for the
ducal tombs shows how the size of the Times of Day grad-
ually increased.

On a sheet of studies for architectural details in the
chapel, Michelangelo wrote:

The heavens and the earth, Night and Day, are speaking and
saying, We have with our swift course brought to death the
Duke Giuliano; it is just that he take vengeance upon us as he
does, and the vengeance is this: that we having slain him,
he thus dead has taken the light from us and with closed eyes
has fastened ours so that they may shine forth no more upon
the earth. What would he have done with us then while
he lived?

Michelangelo did not follow his own notes literally,
because the eyes of all the figures save those of Night are
wide open. Under a sketch for the third wall, which was
planned to contain the tombs of the Magnifici and the
Medici Madonna , he wrote: “Fame holds the epitaphs in
position; it goes neither forward nor backward for they are
dead and their working is finished.” That the ducal statues
were not intended to be recognizable portraits of the
bearded Medici dukes is shown by Michelangelo’s words,
recorded by a contemporary: “He did not take from the
Duke Lorenzo nor from the Lord Giuliano the model just
as nature had drawn and composed them, but he gave
them a greatness, a proportion, a dignity ... which seemed
to him would have brought them more praise, saying that
a thousand years hence no one would be able to know that
they were otherwise.” Roman armor was appropriate to
captains of the Roman Church, which the dukes were, and
even more so to Roman patricians — a rank conferred on
Lorenzo and Giuliano in a grandiose ceremony on the
Capitoline Hill in 1513, complete with Roman trophies,
Medici symbols, personifications of the rivers Tiber and
Arno, and an altar at which Mass was celebrated.

The statues of the dukes — and the priest behind the
altar — look toward the Medici Madonna (fig. 18.7), repre-
sented as the nursing Virgin — one of the most persistent
motifs in Michelangelo’s art (see fig. 16.33). Michelangelo
characterizes Dawn as a youthful virgin and Night , whose
abdomen and breasts suggest childbearing and lactation,
as a mother. In the Virgin Mary these two states are united.

The Mass of the Dead, which in the late seventeenth
century was still being celebrated in the chapel four times
daily, is the central energizing principle of the chapel. It
was probably intended that the priest could look up from
the Medici Madonna to a fresco of the Resurrection in the
lunette. Such an image would have been required by the
dedication of the chapel to the Resurrection. A drawing by
Michelangelo (fig. 18.8) corresponds approximately to the

shape of the lunette and can be connected with no other
commission. Christ here leaps from the tomb totally nude,
as always in Michelangelo’s Resurrection drawings.

Evidence suggests that frescoes of the Old Testament
themes of the Attack of the Fiery Serpents and the Deliv-
ery by the Brazen Serpent (Numbers 21:6-9), for which an
otherwise unexplained Michelangelo drawing survives,
were to be placed over the ducal tombs. But in neither
sketch does the Brazen Serpent itself appear, probably
because it foretold the cross, and the crucifix on the altar
would have fulfilled that function.

The river gods may have been intended to represent the
rivers of paradise, or their significance may have been
geographic. Vasari, who served as one of Michelangelo’s
assistants in the chapel, remembered that Michelangelo
“wished all the parts of the world were there.”

18.7. MICHELANGELO. Medici Madonna. Designed 1521;
carved 1524-34. Marble, height 8'3V2" (2.5 m). Medici Chapel,
S. Lorenzo, Florence. See fig. 18.4.

548 .

THE CINQUECENTO

18.8. MICHELANGELO. Resurrection .
1520-25(?). Black chalk, 9 l /i x 13V
(24 x 35 cm). The Royal Collection © 2005.
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

The compositions of the two ducal tombs are opposites
in subtle and significant ways. While Giuliano (see fig.
18.5) is characterized as open and relaxed, Lorenzo (see
fig. 18.6) is closed, moody, self-contained, and deserving of
his nickname, “II Pensieroso” (“The Thinker”). Giuliano
idly holds several coins, as if in intended largesse; Lorenzo
plants his elbow on a closed money box, decorated with
a fierce mask. Light plays freely on the face of Giuliano ,
but Lorenzo’s is shadowed by his helmet and half-hidden
by his hand.

While related to some of the types and poses of the
Sistine Ceiling, Giuliano and Lorenzo are less massive and
energetic. A strange lassitude overcomes both, and it is
perhaps worth remembering that, while at work on these
statues, Michelangelo, then only in his late forties, wrote
that he was already old, and that if he worked one day he
had to rest four. Their shoulders slope, their muscles sag,
their hands hang heavily. The face of Giuliano (fig. 18.9) is
drained of the fire and conviction of, for example, the
David (see fig. 16.1), or the prophets of the Sistine Ceiling
(see fig. 17.28).

Although the Times of Day are muscular — the pulsating
masses of Day’s back surpass any earlier male nude
created by Michelangelo — they either writhe in helpless
involvement with their own limbs or droop in weariness.
Day’s face is merely blocked out, but in the rough surfaces
of Dusk’s sad head some scholars have discerned
Michelangelo’s own disfigured face. The finished — or
almost finished — female faces are strangely ornamental
and, although in some ways unreal, nonetheless deeply
poetic. Night , with her strongly Hellenic nose and not
quite closed eyes, a star caught in the crescent of her
diadem, seems to be dreaming fitfully of her lost children.

18.9. Head of Giuliano de Medici, detail of fig. 18.5.

NEW DEVELOPMENTS, c. 1 5 2 0-5 0

5 49

18.10. MICHELANGELO. Dawn . From the Tomb of Lorenzo
de’ Medici. Designed 1521; carved 1524-34. Marble, length 6'9"
(2.1 m). Medici Chapel, S. Lorenzo, Florence (see fig. 18.6).

Dawn (fig. 18.10), her knitted brows recalling the facial
structure of the Italo-Byzantine Madonnas of the Duecento
(see fig. 2.8), seems to be grieving over her childlessness.
Michelangelo’s mighty female forms were derived from
male models. The breasts seen in the finished sculpture
do not appear in the studies for the figure of Night . The
shapes of thighs, shins, and ankles seem ornamental rather
than naturalistic and carry the taut arcs of the sarcophagi
into the figural masses.

The Medici Madonna (see fig. 18.7) was reshaped many
times and cut down in the process; the lower portions
reveal the original scale of the group. Although the deeply
meditative face of the Virgin and the muscular body of the
Child never received their final polish, Michelangelo’s use
of the three-toothed chisel gives these passages an atmos-
pheric quality, as if seen through a veil of haze.

The total effect of the sculptures is disturbing, and so are
the details of the ornament. Michelangelo cut away the
original left arm of Night and started a new one, twisted
behind her shoulder, to accommodate a leering mask,
symbol of false dreams, that draws attention to the tiny,
snarling masks of the frieze behind the Times of Day,
suggesting that death is a nightmare from which we will

awaken. The architecture of the chapel, the mood of its
statues, and its personalized decorative motifs had an
immediate and profound effect on contemporary artists at
work in Florence.

THE LAURENTIAN LIBRARY. While engaged in
carving the statues for the Medici Chapel, Michelangelo
was also developing radical new architectural forms. As
early as June 1519, Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici had been
planning a library for San Lorenzo to house the Medicean
collection of books and manuscripts. The commission for
the structure was awarded to Michelangelo after Giulio
became Pope Clement VII in November 1523. The Lau-
rentian Library had to be constructed as a third story on
top of the monastic buildings connected with San Lorenzo.
Construction began in 1524 and stopped and started over
the next ten years. In 1559 Michelangelo sent a model for
the staircase from Rome, but he never saw the building as
it appears today.

The tall, almost shaftlike entrance hall is startling (fig.
18.11). Instead of protruding to suggest a supportive func-
tion, the pairs of severe Tuscan columns on the lower level
are recessed between sections of wall that jut aggressively

5 50

THE CINQUECENTO

18.11. MICHELANGELO.
Entrance Hall, Laurentian Library,

S. Lorenzo, Florence. 1524-36,
1533-34, 1549-50; staircase 1559.
Pietra serena, plaster. Commissioned
by Pope Clement VII.

forward and are decorated with bold blank tabernacles. At
the corners, where extra strength would be expected, the
columns seem to be swallowed by the walls. The large con-
soles below each column are not supportive but purely
sculptural. The bowed central steps of the massive stair-
case flow downward in forceful contrast to the flights of
straight steps that flank them. Even today’s tourists gener-
ally pause before ascending, and most choose the outer
stairs rather than moving against the downward cascade of
the central steps.

The tension that Michelangelo intended in his sequence
of architectural spaces is evident when we move into the
long reading room (fig. 18 . 12 ), which, after the verticality
of the vestibule, has an unexpected horizontality. At first
sight the reading room seems rather conventional. The
wall is recessed behind the pietra serena pilasters and the
tabernacles now frame windows that bring light in from
both sides; such arbitrary elements as consoles with no
supporting function and walls that challenge pilasters are
avoided. What is disturbing, however, is that the room has

NEW DEVELOPMENTS, c. 1 5 2 0-5 0

5 5 1

18.12. MICHELANGELO.
Reading Room, Laurentian
Library, S. Lorenzo, Florence.
1524-26, after 1530-33.

no reasonable focus or terminus. Pilasters, ceiling beams,
and floor patterns combine to produce a repetitive series of
bays — a cage of space in which the reading desks, also
designed by Michelangelo, seem trapped and the observer
with them. Since each of the bays is identical, the succes-

18.13. MICHELANGELO. Plan for the triangular rare-book
room of the Laurentian Library . 1525-26. Pen and ink, 8 3 /4 x 11
(22 x 28 cm). Casa Buonarroti, Florence.

sion could contain several more or less with no effect on
this purely additive composition. The effect is impressive
but it lacks the harmony of proportion established by
Brunelleschi and Alberti as an important element in
Renaissance architectural design.

Today we see the Laurentian Library without its crown-
ing feature, which would have completed the sequence of
contrasting spaces with a climax that might even be com-
pared to the effect of Edgar Allan Poe’s story “The Pit and
the Pendulum” (1842). The parade of bays was to have led
to one of the strangest spatial ideas of the Renaissance: a
triangular room enclosing a maze of reading desks lit from
concealed sources (fig. 18.13). The space available
between pre-existing buildings was indeed triangular, but
another artist of the period would probably have tried to
fit a rectangle or a circle into the shape. Michelangelo
made a virtue of necessity. Alas, this room was never built.

THE FINAL SCHEME FOR THE TOMB OF
POPE JULIUS II. Since four more Captives (one of
which is reproduced here; see fig. 18.16) and one Victory
(see fig. 18.15) for the tomb of Julius II are preserved in
Florence rather than in Rome, the reasonable assumption
is that Michelangelo set to work on them in Florence after
his Medicean commissions were suspended in 1526. The
most troublesome of Julius’s heirs, Francesco Maria della

5 5 2

THE CINQUECENTO

Rovere, duke of Urbino, had recaptured the duchy after
the death of Leo X and was an enemy of the Medici. As
an ally of the Florentine Republic, he passed through Flo-
rence twice during this period, and it can be assumed that
he used his presence there to bring pressure on Michelan-
gelo to complete the tomb. The Florence Captives are
larger than those in the Louvre (see figs. 17.42-17.43) but
would certainly have been carved down, as was Michelan-
gelo’s practice.

A new proposal for Julius’s tomb was formalized in a
written contract in 1532. It called for a wall tomb (fig.
18.14) with the Moses on the upper story and the pope
reclining on a sarcophagus. The meaning of the tomb had
changed since the earlier projects, however, for the idea of
resurrection had been discarded. The Captives , like Atlas
figures, supported the cornice, straining under its enor-
mous weight. The Victory , too, had changed its meaning,

18.14. MICHELANGELO. Tomb of Pope Julius II, proposed
reconstruction of project of 1532 with figs. 17.41 and 18.15-18.16
in place. Compare with the earlier versions of the tomb, figs. 17.20
and 17.40.

for now the youthful figure was engaged in subduing
rather than liberating a captive (fig. 18.15). This revival of
the traditional Psychomachia theme (virtue victorious over
vice) was perhaps a reflection of the newly liberated
Florence. Niccolo Capponi, gonfaloniere of the republic,
asked the Florentines in 1527: “Do you hold dear the con-
quering of your enemies? ... Then conquer yourselves, put
down wrath, let hatred go, put aside bitterness.” Speaking
of the Medici pope, prisoner in Castel Sant’ Angelo, he
warned: “Not the words that are said, ignominiously or

18.15. MICHELANGELO. Victory. 1527-28. Marble, height
8’6 3 /4" (2.6 m). Palazzo Vecchio, Florence. Commissioned for the
tomb of Pope Julius II.

NEW DEVELOPMENTS, c. 1 5 2 0-5 0

5 5 3

injuriously, against enemies, but the deeds that are done,
prudently or valorously, give, won or lost, the victory.”
These words were delivered in the great hall of the Palazzo
dei Priori, which may still have held the beginnings of
Michelangelo’s Battle of Cascina (see fig. 16.42) and cer-
tainly showed Leonardo’s unfinished Battle of Angbiari
(see fig. 16.30), both commissioned when Florence was a
republic. The following year, in the same place, Capponi
pointed out that the Florentines triumphed without blood-
shed, through the intervention of God: “To his divine
Majesty, therefore, we have to lift the eyes of our mind,
recognizing God alone as our King and Lord, hoping
firmly in him, who has undertaken the protection of this
city and state.”

The Victory group is an important example of
Michelangelo’s use of the figura serpentinata and had an
enormous impact on later sixteenth-century sculpture. It is
now tilted somewhat forward; originally, the young hero
looked upward toward heaven, harmonizing better with
the architecture of the tomb and expressing a lofty
dignity — a kind of soaring quality that was both aesthetic
and moral in its significance. The victor is intent on com-
municating with divinity, as might a figure of Abraham or
David. While the beard of the vanquished is largely uncut
marble, elsewhere almost all the early stages of work with
the toothed chisel have been completed. Michelangelo had
largely finished the torso — yet another indication that he
saw this part of the figure as the most crucial aspect of his
visual and emotional conception. While Victory still
expresses the vigorous musculature characteristic of
Michelangelo’s works, the emphasis on the figure’s height,
long limbs, and small head offers a new elegance. In
addition, the composition of superimposed figures chal-
lenged later sixteenth-century sculptors to experiment with
the problem of composing multifigural groups (see figs.
20.22, 20.29).

It is unrealistic to guess at the order planned for the four
Captives (fig. 18.16) on the lower story of the tomb for-
malized in the 1532 contract. Only one is illustrated, but
in all four Michelangelo’s chief interest lay in the torsos,
which are — from the front at least — fully developed with
the toothed chisel and lack only surface finish. Sometimes
an arm or a leg was brought to a similar level of finish, but
never a head. The heads remained either roughed in or, as
in figure 18.16, still encased in the block, save for features
faintly visible on one side as through a dense cloud of
marble. Sometimes the statues were started from two sides
at once, sometimes from three, but in each case the back
side of the quarried block seems to be still largely intact,
giving us yet another insight into Michelangelo’s working
practice at this time. The muscles and skin heave, swell,
subside, or shine silkily against the blocks of stone. What-

18.16. MICHELANGELO. “ Blockhead ” Captive. 1527-28.
Marble, height 8'7V2" (2.63 m). Accademia, Florence. Commissioned
for the tomb of Pope Julius II.

ever might have been Michelangelo’s conscious intent — he
must have thought he would finish the statues — their
present condition may help us to understand both essential
aspects of his nature and the turmoil he must have felt
during the years he was worked on them. To watch these
giants struggle to free themselves from the surrounding
marble has, for nearly five centuries, been a deeply moving
experience for viewers.

5 5 4

THE CINQUECENTO

Andrea del Sarto

The absence of Leonardo, Michelangelo, and Raphael
from Florence after 1508-9 left a clear field for other
artists. One of these, Andrea del Sarto (1486-1530), seems
to have been little affected by the disorders — artistic, his-
torical, political — of the period. His early work contains
echoes of Leonardo, Raphael, and Fra Bartolommeo, as is
evident in his fresco of the Birth of the Virgin (fig. 18.17),
which is located in the atrium of Santissima Annunziata
near Baldovinetti’s light-filled Nativity (see fig. 12.26).

Andrea’s version might be interpreted as a High Renais-
sance commentary on Domenico del Ghirlandaio’s fresco
on the same subject (see fig. 13.39). The patrician interior
reflects the architectural ideals of Giuliano da Sangallo (see
pp. 309-12), and the massive figures, echoing those of
Raphael’s Stanza d’Eliodoro and Michelangelo’s Sistine
Chapel, are united by Andrea’s use of curving rhythms.
The deep shadows of the mature Raphael have also made
their way to Florence, whose artists had generally been
uninterested in Leonardo’s mysterious chiaroscuro. The
idea of representing angels on clouds above the bed
canopy, joining the dancelike movement of the foreground

figures, was derived from a contemporary engraving by the
German artist Albrecht Diirer. Joseph, in the center toward
the back, is lifted in reverse from Raphael’s portrait of
Michelangelo in the School of Athens (see fig. 1 7.4“ i. The
incorporation of these motifs would have been understood
at the time not as a lack of inventiveness but as an indica-
tion of Andrea’s skill and creativity.

The Madonna of the Harpies (fig. 18.18) is a noble
statement of the Florentine version of Roman grandeur.
Vasari explained that Andrea painted the St. John the
Evangelist on the Virgin’s left from a clay model by Jacopo
Sansovino (see pp. 641 — 42), but the inventor of the figure
was Raphael, for Sansovino had merely reversed the
philosopher holding a book, between Pythagoras and the
portrait of Michelangelo, in the School of Athens. Since
Raphael himself reused the same figure in the Galatea (see
fig. 17.68), these borrowings show once again the lack of
any sense of personal ownership among High Renaissance
artists, and their willingness to reuse and refer to each
other’s figural motifs.

The influence of Michelangelo is evident in the majesty
of Andrea’s forms, in the severity of his architectural back-
ground, and in the sculptural roundness of his figures. But

18.17. ANDREA DEL SARTO. Birth of the Virgin . 1514. Fresco,
13'5V2" x 1 1 '4 " (4 x 3.5 m). Atrium, SS. Annunziata, Florence.

18.18. ANDREA DEL SARTO. Madonna of the Harpies.
1517. Panel, 6’9V2" x 5 TO 11 (2 x 1.8 m). Uffizi Gallery, Florence.
Commissioned for the high altar of S. Francesco in Via Pentolini,
Florence, by the abbess.

NEW DEVELOPMENTS, c. 1520-50

5 5 5

Andrea assimilated these various elements to create an
altarpiece that is, in the best High Renaissance manner,
unified by his personal sense of formal harmony and deep-
toned color. Also characteristic is the melancholic sweet-
ness seen in the expressions of St. Francis and the Virgin.
The harpies who guard her throne are included not merely
as references to ancient art, but also as leaders of souls to
another world. The strong, simplified composition, the
poise and counterpoise of masses, and the eloquence of
figural style achieved by Andrea in this and other contem-
porary pictures made him the leading Florentine painter of
the period.

In 1523, together with his wife, her daughter, and her
sister, Andrea fled the plague, which had returned to Flo-
rence, for the country air of the Mugello. There, in 1524,
in the village of Luco, he painted a moving image of the
Lamentation (fig. 18.19). The dead Christ is upheld in a
seated position by John the Evangelist, while the Virgin
holds his hand and looks downward. Mary Magdalen,
kneeling in prayer before the feet she once washed with her
tears and dried with her hair, withdraws into meditation.
This is not a historical representation of the narrative, for
saints Peter and Paul appear at the sides, and St. Catherine

looks on quietly, her hands crossed on her chest. The ded-
ication of the church in Luco to St. Peter and the fact that
its abbess was called Catherine account for the presence of
these two saints. Such ahistorical additions would have
enhanced the painting’s meaning for local worshippers.
Christ’s body is also presented mystically in the form of the
sacrament, and the chalice stands in the center foreground,
covered by the paten or plate on which the Host appears.
The Eucharist draws the gaze of all the saints except John,
who looks, as he was asked, toward Christ’s mother.

Andrea’s wife, stepdaughter, and sister-in-law posed for
the Virgin, the Magdalen, and St. Catherine, and the town
of Luco appears in the background in the evening light.
Perhaps the intimacy of this family-style Lamentation
can be explained by the arrival in Florentine territory of
the quietist doctrines of the Oratory of Divine Love (see
p. 534). The sacrament draws all to itself, and we are to
forget the pathos of the darkened face of Christ as we con-
template his perpetuation in the shining wafer. Here grief
is transformed into lyrical exaltation.

The face of Mary in Andrea’s large Assumption of the
Virgin (fig. 18.20) bears the features of the painter’s wife.
Light shines on the circle of saints, but then darkness closes

Left: 18.19. ANDREA DEL SARTO. Lamentation .
1524. Panel, 7'10" x 6'8" (2.4 x 2 m). Pitti Gallery,
Florence. Commissioned by Abbess Caterina di Tedaldo
for the high altar of S. Pietro in Luco, near Florence.

Opposite : 18.20. ANDREA DEL SARTO. Assumption
of the Virgin. 1526-29. Panel, 7'9" x 6'9" (2.36 x 2.05 m).
Pitti Gallery, Florence. Commissioned by Margherita
Passerini for Sant’ Antonio dei Servi, Cortona.

5 5 6

THE CINQUECENTO

NEW DEVELOPMENTS, c. 1 5 20-50 • 557

in and we glimpse part of a rocky cliff in the background.
The altarpiece combines substance and dissolution, reality
and vision, in a manner that suggests some of the develop-
ments of the Italian Baroque that would follow in the sev-
enteenth century.

Pontormo

Andrea del Sarto remained a High Renaissance painter
even in his most mystical phase, but his pupil Jacopo
Carucci da Pontormo (1494-1557) is one of the earliest
artists to move away from those ideals. Vasari tells us that
when Pontormo was eighteen he studied with Leonardo da
Vinci, Piero di Cosimo, and Andrea del Sarto in succession.
Vasari’s discussion of Piero’s life suggests that he was tem-
peramentally closest to Piero, for the biographer empha-
sizes that in his later years Pontormo became a recluse,
shutting himself away from the world in a studio accessi-
ble only by means of a ladder, which he could draw up
after him. Even in his early works the strangeness of Pon-
tormo’s style is evident. In his Visitation (fig. 18.21) in the
atrium of Santissima Annunziata, for example, Pontormo
had already transformed High Renaissance principles. At
first sight, his composition seems to exemplify High
Renaissance symmetry, for the main incident is centralized
and the figures are neatly arranged within the architectural
setting. But then, instead of balancing the woman seated
on the stairs at the left with a similar motif at the right,
Pontormo breaks the symmetry by introducing a naked
boy whose figure initiates an unexpected movement
inward and upward along lines continued by the kneeling
St. Elizabeth. The sometimes jarring color combinations,
based on those established in Michelangelo’s Sistine fres-
coes — Elizabeth wears a golden-yellow tunic with a sea-
green outer sleeve and a violet inner sleeve — heighten the
unconventional figural composition.

One wonders why the Visitation , which took place in
front of Elizabeth’s house, should be staged in a niche
above a pyramid of steps. The setting draws attention to
the apex of the arch where we see the Sacrifice of Isaac
between chanting putti holding urns of flowers. The Sacri-
fice of Isaac was traditionally interpreted as a forerunner
of that of Christ; here its juxtaposition with the Visitation
converts the prenatal meeting of Christ and St. John the
Baptist into a prophecy of their martyrdoms. Although the
placement of the Isaac scene above the portal suggests that
this is a sculptural group, this presumption is denied by the
unexpectedly naturalistic color.

Pontormo’s personal style is even more evident in his
contributions to a series of paintings that were incorpo-
rated into the wainscoting of the nuptial chamber of Pier-
francesco Borgherini, a close friend of Michelangelo. This

18.21. PONTORMO. Visitation . 1514-16. Fresco, 12 TO" x 11'
(3.9 x 3.35 m). Atrium, SS. Annunziata, Florence. Commissioned by
the Servites of SS. Annunziata.

For other frescoes in this series of the Life of the Virgin Mary, see figs.
18.17 and 18.27.

series representing the story of Joseph was ordered by
Borgherini from Andrea del Sarto, Pontormo, and two
other painters. Pontormo’s Joseph in Egypt (fig. 18.22)
breaks with the High Renaissance in its crowds of nervous
figures, statues pulsating on the tops of slender columns,
uncertain and unprotected staircase spiraling to nowhere,
broken and spasmodic rhythms, irrational light and space,
and avoidance of centrality, symmetry, or any other form
of unifying compositional device. The narrative is broken
up into vignettes, some close to us, some far away, yet
without any apparent connection. In addition, Pontormo
created irrational jumps in scale, from Pharaoh’s dream at
the upper right, to the discovery of the cup in the center, to
the reconciliation of Joseph and his brothers at the left. By
avoiding the clear narratives of the High Renaissance,
Pontormo forced us to search out the biblical story within
a world full of unexpected details.

558

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18.22. PONTORMO. Joseph in Egypt .
c. 1518. Panel, 38 x 43 1 *" (96.5 x 109.5
cm). National Gallery, London.

Painted for the nuptial chamber of
Pierfrancesco Borgherini in the Palazzo
Borgherini, Florence (now Palazzo
Rosselli del Turco), an example of High
Renaissance architecture that still stands
in Borgo Santi Apostoli.

A surprising sense of terror runs through the picture.
The figures around a gigantic boulder in the center back-
ground seem transfixed, as if in a dream, by a power
beyond comprehension or control. They have been inter-
preted in terms of the brothers’ lament: “Why shall we die
before thine eyes, both we and our land?” (Genesis 47:19).
The relevance of the scene and of this verse for contempo-
rary Florentines, well aware that they had lost both
freedom and independence, may be intentional. The Ger-
manic buildings in the background are derived from the
engravings of Albrecht Diirer. Vasari complained that Pon-
tormo had sacrificed Italian grace to Northern strangeness
in his figures as well. The anxious boy in contemporary
dress seated on the step in the foreground was identified by
Vasari as Pontormo’s pupil and adopted son, the painter
Agnolo Tori, called Bronzino (see figs. 20.31-20.36).

A different mood is celebrated in the bucolic fresco Pon-
tormo painted, probably in 1520-21, for the Villa Medici
at Poggio a Caiano (fig. 18.23), built some forty years
earlier for Lorenzo the Magnificent (see fig. 12.20). Leo X,
who wanted the great hall decorated with classical sub-
jects, placed Cardinal Giulio in charge of the project at the
same time that the cardinal was watching over the progress
of Michelangelo’s designs for the Medici Chapel. Andrea
del Sarto and others were commissioned to paint the side
walls and Pontormo the end walls, but at the death of Leo

in 1521 the work was interrupted and not resumed until
later in the century. Of Pontormo’s share, only one lunette
was ever completed. Vasari wrote that the subject —
Vertumnus, Roman god of harvests, and Pomona, goddess
of fruit trees — was provided by the humanist Paolo Giovio.
Presuming that Vasari was correct, this is one of the rare
instances where we know the name of the person who con-
sulted with patron and artist on the choice and interpreta-
tion of subject matter. It is a reminder that undocumented
discussions between several parties may underlie many of
the works that we have been studying.

The motto “GLOVIS” in the roundel below the oculus
refers to Lorenzo de’ Medici, duke of Urbino, who died in
1519. Read backward, it comes out “si volg[e or “it
turns,” a reference to the reversals of fate that character-
ized the history of the Medici. The inscription in the car-
touche above the oculus is taken from Virgil’s Georgies (I,
21), in which the gods are depicted in bucolic activities — a
suitable subject for a country villa. Vertumnus and
Pomona are united by the garland of fruits and vegetables
under the window and by the laurel branches, symbols of
both Lorenzo and Apollo, that seem to grow from its
frame. While old Faunus, god of the woods, crouches in
the left corner, Vertumnus turns to gaze at the beautiful
figure of Apollo who, seated on the low wall in a strikingly
natural pose, reaches up to the laurel branches. Opposite

NEW DEVELOPMENTS, c. 1 5 2 0 -5 0 • 559

18.23. PONTORMO. Vertumnus and Pomona. Probably 1520-21. Fresco, 15 x 33' (4.6 x 10 in). Villa Medici, Poggio a Caiano.
Commissioned by Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici. For a view of the Quattrocento villa, see fig. 12.20.

him, a clothed and chaste Diana holds a laurel branch. The
content of Pontormo’s lunette is close to that of an elegy
that the poet Ariosto composed for Lorenzo.

Thb sunlit scene of this enchanted terrace is deceptive,
for Pontormo’s composition again challenges the unity and
logic of the High Renaissance. Figures and vegetation are
fixed within a web of delicate color and convoluted linear
patterns. But while the compositional patterns offered by
the placement of the figures and the disposition of their
limbs have the carefully studied quality of the High
Renaissance, the figures to the left of the oculus echoing
and balancing those on the right, the internal logic of the
scene is continuously called into question. The window
frame becomes a base for the two uppermost putti, for
example, while the ground is nonexistent, space is nowhere
defined, the figures are poised on the horizontals as if bal-
anced on wires, and the composition — on its three levels —
is laced together largely by the laurel branches. Each figure
at first appears relaxed, but a closer analysis reveals that

most of them seem to be tense and holding a slightly
uncomfortable pose. And where in Renaissance art have
we seen a front view of a stretching nude youth (a god, no
less!) with his legs spread wide, above a dog with its back
arched, stretching itself? The animal naturalism of such
poses negates the idealism of the High Renaissance.

Pontormo’s Descent from the Cross , the nucleus of a
cycle of paintings for the Capponi family in their tiny
chapel in Santa Felicita (figs. 18.24—1 8.25), is a work of
poignancy and beauty. This painting was traditionally
identified as an Entombment, but a preparatory drawing
shows a ladder in the upper left where the cloud is found
in the final painting, suggesting that the original intent was
a Deposition. In the painting as executed, however, the
exact moment remains unclear. There are no crosses, there
is no tomb, and no demarcation separates earth from sky.
Like Andrea del Sarto’s Lamentation , this is a meditative
picture, and the real subject might be said to be the
Eucharist. Two unidentifiable youths carry the lifeless

560

THE CINQUECENTO

18.24. PONTORMO. 1525-28. Capponi Chapel, Sta. Felicita, Florence. Commissioned by the Capponi family.

The fresco on the right wall is Pontormo’s Annunciation , but the elaborate wall decoration between the figures of Gabriel and the Virgin Mary
is a disruptive later addition, as is the stained-glass window. Pontormo originally frescoed the dome with a figure of God the Father, but this has
been lost. The four pendentives feature bust-length figures of the Evangelists, three by Pontormo and one by his pupil Agnolo Bronzino.

body of Christ while two women tend to Mary, who
stretches out one hand above his shining body. The
wounds, already washed, are barely visible. The figures
ascend in the mysterious space like a fountain in a Renais-
sance garden. Every motion is slow, dreamlike, unreal.
At the top, St. John the Evangelist bends over, not
through his own volition but as if carried by the now
descending waters of the fountain and the arch of the
frame, stretching out his hands toward the body. No one
weeps. One senses the disorientation experienced by those
who have suffered a great loss.

The colors here are again derived in part from the Sistine
Ceiling, but the pinks, sharp greens, and pale but intense

blues appear in improbable places, including what looks
like the skin of the two youths but on inspection turns out
to be tight-fitting leather jerkins. The effect is like colored
lights playing over the fountain of figures. At the upper
right, the young man with blond curls and beard, full lips,
and wide, staring eyes has been identified as Pontormo
himself. Such a face makes it easier to accept Vasari’s story
that Pontormo walled up the chapel for three years and let
no one enter while he painted so private a testament.

After he completed the Capponi Chapel, Pontormo
seems to have become morose and introverted. His Last
Judgment frescoes (1546-51) for the chancel of San
Lorenzo were destroyed in a later remodeling of the

5 6 i

NEW DEVELOPMENTS, c. 1 5 2 0 - 5 0

18.25. PONTORMO. Descent from the Cross. 1525-28. Panel, 10'3 M x 6'4" (3.13 x 1.92 m). It Capponi Chapel, Sta. Felicita,
Florence (see fig. 18.24). The frame is original.

562

THE CINQUECENTO

18.26. PONTORMO
Study for Deluge Fres- e
for San Lorenzo porri«s«
of sheet), c. 1546. Red
chalk, whole sheet M*/> ;<
8 V 2 " (41.9x21.6 cm .
Gabinetto dei Discgni c
Stampc, Uffizi Gallery,
Florence. Commissioned
by Cosimo de’ Medici.

building. In one of the drawings (fig. 18.26) the autonomy
of individual figures is overwhelmed by a flowing move-
ment that surges across the composition. The softness of
the red chalk helps to create the sense of wavelike fluidity
so appropriate for this subject.

Rosso Fiorentino

Equally unique is the work of Pontormo’s contemporary
Giovanni Battista di Jacopo, who is known to us by his
nickname of Rosso Fiorentino (“The Redheaded Floren-
tine”; 1495-1540). Rosso’s Assumption of the Virgin (fig.
18.27) in the atrium of Santissima Annunziata is found
near works by Baldovinetti, Andrea del Sarto, and Pon-
tormo. The foreground is crowded with the apostles,
shown wall-to-wall with no landscape background. Their
massive cloaks collide, one draping over the edge of the
frame into the spectator’s space. The Virgin — enclosed
within a ring of smiling putti, whose arms and clasped
hands make a continuous circle in depth, their feet flying
out as the ring revolves — is shown ascending so quickly
that she will soon be out of view. All this takes place to the
music of a lute and flute played by angels below the
Virgin’s feet. To cap the climax, the putti have tied in knots
the sash that Mary customarily drops to St. Thomas tie it
in knots and seem to be teasing him by dangling it in front
of his nose! A close inspection reveals the strange and even
disturbing expressions of some of the apostles. Rosso
seems to have been determined to defy High Renaissance
decorum in order to enliven this often-represented subject.

18.27. ROSSO FIORENTINO. Assumption of the Virgin. 151”.
Fresco, 12'7" x 13' (3.85 x 3.95 m). Atrium, SS. Annunziata,
Florence. Commissioned by the Servites of SS. Annunziata.

5 6

NEW DEVELOPMENTS, c. 1 5 20-50

18.28. ROSSO FIORENTINO. Descent from the Cross . 1521. Panel, 13' x 6'6" (4x2 m). Pinacoteca, Volterra.
Commissioned for the Chapel of the Compagnia della Croce di Giorno in the church of S. Francesco in Volterra.

564

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Vasari wrote of pranks played by Rosso, especially the
torments his pet monkey inflicted on the monks of Santa
Croce, but Rosso’s Descent from the Cross (fig. 18.28)
demonstrates his ability to capture high tragedy. The
figures stand out against the geometrical patterns of the
cross and ladders, and all the forms are powerfully
modeled by a low side light. There is no central focus; as
in Pontormo’s contemporary Vertumnus and Pomona , the
composition is composed of shapes that seem to seek the
frame rather than a central axis and, as in Pontormo, the
figures assume poses of the utmost extension or are
cramped in postures from which they cannot move freely.
But there the resemblance stops. Rosso’s muscle-bound
figures seem hard, as if carved from wood, and their bodies
and faces are formed of cubic shapes that relate to the
planes of the cross and ladders. In the kneeling, stretching
Magdalen under the cross, a knife-edge crease splits the
figure into light and dark halves; to show that this is no
accident, her belt is bent as it goes around the crease. John
the Evangelist, turning away from the cross and covering

18.29. ROSSO FIORENTINO. Moses Defending the Daughters of
Jethro . c. 1523. Canvas, 5*3" x 3'10 1 £" (1.6 x 1.2 m). Uffizi Gallery,
Florence. Probably commissioned by Giovanni Bandini.

his face with his hands, collapses into a bundle of cloth
caught in the raking light. When we turn to the face of
Christ, we find an unexpected smile, a kind of reassu rance
that another meaning for this event will become evident.

Rosso’s Moses Defending the Daughters of Jethro (fig.
18.29) has a pink and blue color scheme that contrasts
with its brutal subject. It makes sense only as a comment
on Michelangelo’s Brazen Serpent spandrel (see fig. 17.39).
Moses, flailing away with his fists, creates the apex of an
apparently conventional High Renaissance pyramid based
on the prostrate Midianites. But the pyramid is disrupted
by a ferocious Midianite at the upper left and a provoca-
tive daughter of Jethro at the upper right, her body par-
tially covered by drapery that reveals more than it hides.
The foreshortened figures become abstract planes of juxta-
posed tone. Rosso fled from the horrors of the Sack of
Rome and moved to France, where he and other Italian
artists imported by King Francis I transformed French art.

Perino del Vaga

The style of Piero Bonaccorsi, known as Perino del Vaga
(1500/1-1547), differs sharply from that of Pontormo and
Rosso, both of whom seemed intent on enlivening the
High Renaissance by creating personal styles. Perino was
employed in Raphael’s workshop in Rome, and his work
can be understood as a mannered extension of Raphael’s
last works, especially the Transfiguration (see fig. 17.63).
After the Sack, Perino fled Rome to take refuge in Genoa.

Perino ’s Adoration of the Child (fig. 18.30) is a variant
on the Nativity, although neither shed, manger, ox, ass, or
shepherds are present. We have seen this subject before in
Fra Filippo Lippi’s Adoration of the Infant Jesus (see fig.
9.15), although the earlier version is less crowded with
subsidiary saints. Of the six saints who surround Mary
and the Child only one, Joseph, was present at his birth.
Sebastian on the left and Roch on the right were protectors
against the plague; John the Baptist (shown as an adult
here, but traditionally only six months older than Christ),
Catherine of Alexandria, and James the Greater were
probably requested by the patrons. Perino’s signature and
the date 1534 appear on the foreshortened tablet in the
foreground — a device borrowed from Albrecht Dlirer. The
Christ Child, whose pose is derived from one of Michelan-
gelo’s nudes in the Sistine Ceiling, looks and points toward
John the Baptist. The languid, mannered grace and sensu-
ous flesh of Sebastian, who toys with an arrow, contrast
with the draperies concealing the female bodies. Acute pre-
ciosity and brilliance of color are combined with
chiaroscuro derived from Raphael’s latest works. A shaft
of light at the upper right strikes a male figure from whose
right hand dangles a slaughtered lamb, a symbol of Christ’s

NEW DEVELOPMENTS, c. 1 5 2 0-5 0

5 65

18.30. PERINO DEL YAGA. Adoration of the Child. 1534. Panel,
transferred to canvas, 9'V4" x 7'3V8" (2.74 x 2.21 m). National
Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (Kress Collection). Commissioned
by the Basadonne family for Sta. Maria della Consolazione, Genoa.

sacrifice. Unlike the works of Pontormo and Rosso,
Perino’s painting emphasizes elegance at the expense of the
narrative content.

Perino’s cycle of frescoes for the Palazzo del Principe in
Genoa was painted around five years earlier, about 1529.
The most surprising is the Fall of the Giants (fig. 18.31),
an enormous ceiling painting. The subject, an invocation
of political authority, invites comparison with Giulio
Romano’s illusionistic treatment of the same theme (see
fig. 18.65). The choice of subject for both paintings may
have been suggested by the arrival of Charles V in Italy in
1530. He landed in Genoa, where he was greeted with
cries of “Long live the Emperor of the World!” Jupiter,
whose face is almost identical with that of God the Father
in the Adoration of the Child , reveals how the mythologi-
cal and the religious were interrelated in the Renaissance.
He brandishes his thunderbolt from the foreshortened
circle of the zodiac, surrounded by Perino’s typically

18.31. PERINO DEL VAGA. Fall of the Giants . Begun c. 1529. Fresco, approx. 21 x 30' (6.4 x 9.2 m). Palazzo del Principe, Genoa.
Commissioned by the Doria family.

566

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sensuous, mannered deities. Meanwhile, the rather weak
giants pile up on the ground in dream-like attitudes, as if
nerveless before the thundering king of the gods.

Domenico Beccafumi

The Sienese Domenico Beccafumi (1485-1551) can be
compared to Pontormo in the sensitivity, poetry, and
careful craftsmanship of his pictures. The traditional
Sienese delicacy of color and grace of line and surface con-
tinue in Beccafumi’s paintings, but at high intensity. His
Stigmatization of St Catherine (fig. 18.32) might at first
glance be taken for a High Renaissance work: its symmet-
rical format goes back to Perugino, the grand simplicity of
the architecture is in keeping with Bramante’s noble style,
and the softening effects of the chiaroscuro recall

Leonardo’s sfumato. And then differences appear. The
shifting light on the floor patterns prevents any rational
succession. The two foreground piers are so closely associ-
ated with the flanking St. Benedict and St. Jerome that
architecture and flesh seem to merge, the folds of the
saints’ habits suggesting less the shapes of their bodies
underneath than the verticals of the piers behind them. The
arches, pendentives, and vaults (in Italian vele , or veils)
become veils or curtains upheld by putti that dissolve to
admit the apparition of the Virgin and Child. The clouds
blend into the ground mists floating upward from the
valleys of the landscape.

A High Renaissance artist would have placed the main
figure in the center, but Beccafumi shows St. Catherine
kneeling on the left. Awaiting the stigmata, she raises her
hands in a manner that continues the orthogonals of the

18.32. DOMENICO BECCAFUMI.
Stigmatization of St. Catherine, c. 1518.
Panel, 6'8 3 /4" x S'lVi" (2 x 1.56 m).
Pinacoteca, Siena. Commissioned for the
Benedictine Convent of Monte Oliveto,
near Siena.

NEW DEVELOPMENTS, c. 1 5 2 0- 5 0

5 6 7

cornices and the arms of the cross; thus lines that should
recede into space are transformed into a diagonal in a
single plane. Features are brilliantly modeled, but shadows
are murky. Drapery masses shine like flames but, while the
edges are clear enough, the exact shape of any fold is not.
In the shadows we can discern St. Jerome’s lion and St.
Catherine’s lily and book, as well as a sleeping nun who is
not privileged to share in Catherine’s experience. Becca-
fumi seems to be suggesting that all substance is an illu-
sion, that earthly reality will vanish into the shadows and
luminous mist. He transforms substance while simultane-
ously annihilating space.

Beccafumi’s large Fall of the Rebel Angels (fig. 18.33),
still unfinished, was apparently rejected by its patrons at
the church of San Niccolo del Carmine, who then required

18.33. DOMENICO BECCAFUMI. Fall of the Rebel Angels
(first version), c. 1524. Oil on panel, 11'4V2" x 7'4" (3.5 x 2.2 m).
Pinacoteca, Siena. Commissioned for the Church of S. Niccolo
del Carmine, Siena.

Beccafumi to paint a second version that is still in the
church (fig. 18.34). The problem may have been the repre-
sentation of God the Father. In the first version, he seems
to have been an afterthought. Half lost in the mist above
St. Michael, his head is foreshortened and his arms are
squeezed in along the curve of the arch. The picture would
have been complete without him, and he is much less fin-
ished than Michael. Perhaps Beccafumi somehow misun-
derstood the requirements of the commission and

18.34. DOMENICO BECCAFUMI. Fall of the Rebel Angels
(second version), c. 1528. Oil on panel, 1V4 1 /!" x 7'4" (3.5 x 2.2 m).
ffl Church of S. Niccolo del Carmine, Siena.

Of this picture Giorgio Vasari wrote: “The Sienese painter Baldassare
Peruzzi never tired of praising this picture, and one day when I was
passing through Siena, as I was looking at it with him, I myself
was amazed at both the altarpiece and the five small stories in the
predella, which are executed in tempera in a most judicious and
beautiful manner.”

568 *

THE CINQUECENTO

neglected to figure God into his original composition.
Another possibility is that the increasing threat of the
Reformation and its criticism of the Catholic emphasis on
saints led the monks to request that God, not traditionally
represented in this scene, be added. Whatever the reason,
the first version, with its rather spectral representation of
God, was unacceptable. In the second, he is majestically
enthroned, robed in a brilliant red, and adored by ranks of
angels, dominating the event with appropriate authority,
Beccafumi also provided us with two different versions
of hell. In the original version, all is chaos. St. Michael, his
spread wings flickering with peacock eyes, brandishes his
sword. In the clouds about him other angels flail away at
the rebels. At the bottom of the picture, near the observer,
hell opens. Nude fallen angels, mostly wingless now, twist
and turn in agony, cry out, and lie on the ground writhing
as the heat torments them. In a manner unprecedented in
Italy, Beccafumi allowed us to look into the phosphores-
cent lights of hell. In his second version, the light effects
are even more impressive. The terror of the fire is some-
what in the distance, seen through arches to left and right,
but in the foreground center a sudden burst of fire illumi-
nates a terrifying mouth, complete with curling tongue and
broken teeth, and the foreshortened, grasping claw of a
terrible monster.

When the second version was provided with a new
marble frame in 1688, the five predella panels praised bv
Vasari became unnecessary. Three are lost, but two scenes
from the legend of St. Michael survive (figs. 18.35-18.36 .
In what was probably the leftmost predella, Pope Gregory
I is shown leading a procession during a sixth-century out-
break of the plague. As he crossed the Tiber he looked up
to see, standing atop the Mausoleum of Hadrian, Michael,
who then sheathed his sword to indicate that the epi-
demic — God’s punishment for a sinful humanity — would
be stopped. Henceforth the mausoleum became known as
the Castel Sant’ Angelo and a colossal statue of Michael
was later placed on the top. The scene in the second sur-
viving predella panel shows how a famous pilgrimage site,
a cave on Mount Gargano in southern Italy, became sanc-
tified to St. Michael. Here a hunter’s arrow shot at a bull
changed direction to hit the hunter, after which the
archangel Michael appeared and asked that this spot be
consecrated to him. A procession winds up the path to
perform the consecration.

In these predelle, Beccafumi traded the oil he had used
for the two versions of the altarpiece for the old-fashioned,
less flexible medium of tempera. But he did not use the
tempera in the traditional manner, building up deep effects
of color with careful layers. Rather he applied the medium

18.35. DOMENICO BECCAFUMI. The Appearance of St. Michael on the Castel SantAngelo. c. 1528. Tempera on panel,

9 x 14V4" (22.9 x 36.2 cm). Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh. Commissioned for the church of S. Niccolo del Carmine, Siena.

NEW DEVELOPMENTS, c. 1520-50 * 569

18.36. DOMENICO BECCAFUMI. The Miracle of St. Michael on Mt. Gargano. c. 1528. Tempera on panel, S 7 k x 14 3 /s"
(22.5 x 36.5 cm). Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh. Commissioned for the church of S. Niccolo del Carmine, Siena.

loosely, almost like thin washes. Beccafumi also used the
white highlights that were conimon in tempera painting.
But why use tempera in such a novel manner? Beccafumi
had recently visited Rome, where he may have seen the
newly discovered ancient Roman frescoes in the Baths of
Titus. His predella panels look less like earlier tempera
works than they do these ancient frescoes; even the yellow-
pink-green color scheme is reminiscent of these models.

Properzia de’ Rossi

The first four editions of this book contained no mention
of the several women artists who worked during the
Italian Renaissance. In this edition the works of four
women artists are included: Properzia de’ Rossi (see
figs. 18.37-18.38), Sofonisba Anguissola (see figs.
19.37-19.38), Lavinia Fontana (see figs. 20.48-20.49),
and Fede Galizia (see fig. 20.57). Perhaps the most remark-
able thing about these women, all recognized in their own
lifetimes, was that they were able to become artists at all.
It was difficult for a woman to receive training during a
period when new ideas about the importance of family
emphasized that a woman’s role was in the home, bearing
and raising children and providing a wholesome environ-
ment for family life. In addition, it would have been con-
sidered inappropriate for a woman artist to represent the

male nude figure — the most important way at the time for
an artist to demonstrate skill and an understanding of the
contributions of Michelangelo and Raphael. In addition,
guild membership was traditionally restricted to men.

The only woman to receive her own biography in
Vasari’s Lives was the Bolognese artist Properzia de’ Rossi
(c; 1490-1529 or 1530). In addition, her likeness was
memorialized in a woodcut portrait surrounded by a fash-
ionable frame, complete with a double pediment, designed
by Vasari (fig. 18.37). Each biography in the second
edition of the Lives had such a portrait frontispiece,
although a few of Vasari’s frames were left empty because
he was unable to locate a portrait of that particular artist.
The frame used for Properzia’s portrait is the one Vasari
designed to be used for sculptors; the flaming lamps at the
top are symbols of inspiration, while the allegorical figure
of La Scultura, with mallet and chisel, vigorously carves a
bearded head. This is appropriate, for Properzia’s fame
was as a sculptor. Unfortunately she died young. Among
the few certain works by her hand is a marble relief for the
Cathedral of Bologna representing the Old Testament story
of the Chastity of Joseph (fig. 18.38).

Vasari pointed out that Properzia was especially famous
for her miniaturized carvings on fruit stones such as peach
pits. Eleven of these, carved front and back, are thought to
survive in the Museo Civico in Bologna, where they are

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view of cavorting putti in movement against the blue sky.
Arches at the base of the pergola are painted as illusionis-
tic niches filled with sculptures based on antique themes
and models. Pairs of rams’ heads adorned with beaded
necklaces unify the decoration on the lowest level. These
heads, some with witty or bemused expressions, support
draped cloths holding golden plates and jugs. The lower
walls, now bare, were probably decorated with tapestries,
and elegant furniture would have completed the effect.

The iconographic program is obscure, but there are
enough clues to tell us that those who designed it were
erudite humanists. The figures that have been identified
include Fortune, the Three Graces (see fig. 18.40), Tellus
(the earth goddess), Juno (as a representation of Air), the
Three Fates, Pan, and others. A drawing demonstrates that
Correggio adapted motifs from ancient coins — a popular
object for collection and study among humanists in Parma.

The Convent of San Paolo was unusual in that the
abbess reported directly to the pope and was not under the
control of the local bishop. In addition, it was the chosen
nunnery for the unmarried daughters of the local aristoc-
racy. This combination meant that the convent had an
unusually liberal, intellectual, and sophisticated atmos-
phere. Some of the iconography has been connected to a
quarrel the abbess had with the local bishop, who wanted
to assert authority over the convent and clamp down on
what he felt were abuses. While some iconographic details
may have been intended to serve Giovanna’s cause, the
overall impression of the room is of a learned and artistic
decorative totality.

From the start of Correggio’s mature period, he seems to
have chosen to substitute emotional principles for formal
ones in unifying his compositions. No longer are the saints
sedately balanced around a central Madonna figure, as in
works by Giovanni Bellini and Raphael. Rather they are
drawn together in unconventional compositions by the
implication of emotional relationships. In the Madonna
and Child with Sts . Jerome and Mary Magdalen (fig.
18.41), Mary holds the Christ Child in the crook of her left
arm. The Magdalen presses her cheek against his thigh,
bringing one foot toward her lips. He caresses her mass of
silken hair while looking at the book held by the aged
St. Jerome as a youthful angel turns the pages. Behind this
apparently spontaneous burst of mutual affection is a
deeper message, for the Magdalen’s angel displays her oint-
ment jar, and the Magdalen herself was destined to wash
the feet of the adult Christ with her tears and, after drying
them with her hair, she anointed them with expensive
perfume. Christ, meanwhile, for all his babyish expression,
is conferring his blessing on Jerome’s translation of the
Bible from its ancient sources, which are represented by the
scroll in the saint’s hand.

18.41. CORREGGIO. Madonna and Child with Sts. Jerome and
Mary Magdalen. After 1523. Panel, 7'8V2 x 4'7Vi" (2.35 x 1.41 m).
Pinacoteca, Parma.

Commissioned by Briseide Colla, widow of Orazio Bergonzi, for
Sant’ Antonio, Parma. Vasari praised this painting: “In Sant’ Antonio
in Parma he painted a panel picture showing the Madonna and St.
Mary Magdalene, with a boy nearby in the guise of a little angel, who
is holding a book and smiling so naturally.... This work, which also
contains a St. Jerome, is especially admired by other painters for its
astonishing and beautiful coloring, and it is difficult to imagine
anything better.”

Human emotion and sacred purpose are thus blended in
Correggio’s art. His tumultuous shapes — tanned flesh, tor-
rential hair, or cloth that flows like melting marble — are
swept together by these two organizing principles into cli-
maxes that seem both erotic and religious. One might say
that it is love that makes Correggio’s world go round.
Sometimes his imagery remains on a level of delightful
sweetness, unquestioning and childlike. He never seems to
have been perplexed by the conflict between the two
realms he so happily united. But his forms are so soft, his

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light so melting, his surfaces so luscious, his people so irre-
sistible, that it is unnecessary to question his joining of the
two spheres. As far as we know, his religious paintings
never fell victim to the strictures of the Council of Trent,
which sternly forbade nudity and inappropriate details and
interpretation in religious works.

Among Correggio’s most famous works is his Adoration
of the Shepherds or, as it is more generally called, Holy
Night (fig. 18.42). In this work, St. Bridget’s vision of the
glowing Christ Child, represented in Gentile da Fabriano’s
predella a century earlier (see fig. 8.3), is united with Cor-
reggio’s own energizing principle of love. Frederick Hartt
once suggested that the resulting effect might be compared
with the “light and heat” that St. Cajetan, who would

18.42. CORREGGIO. Adoration of the Shepherds (Holy Night).
1522. Panel, 8'5" x 6'2" (2.6 x 1.9 m). Gemaldegalerie, Dresden.
Commissioned by Alberto Pratoneri for S. Prospero, Reggio Emilia.
In 1640 the Este family, then dukes of Modena, took possession of
this painting and carried it off to their palace, to the infinite sorrow
of the inhabitants of Reggio Emilia; the parish priest inscribed its loss
in San Prospero’s register of the dead.

found the Theatine Order in this same decade, had sought
in the Eucharist. In Correggio’s painting, an incandescent
baby, expertly foreshortened and lying on a bundle of
wheat in reference to the Eucharist, illuminates Mary’s
sweetly smiling face, while the midwife draws back and
raises her hand, as if to protect herself from the intensity of
the unexpected radiance. The light also falls on two shep-
herds, the younger one looking up rapturously at his
companion, and on the angels, who sweep in on a cloud,
brilliantly foreshortened, as well as on the faces of Joseph
and the ox and ass. In contrast, the hills, over which can
be seen the first glimmer of dawn, are left in darkness.

Correggio’s dome compositions opened up a whole new
field of religious painting for painters of his own and later
centuries. The earliest represents the Vision of St. John the
Evangelist (fig. 18.43). Correggio seems to have taken as
his point of departure Mantegna’s Camera picta (see fig.
15.25). On clouds banked round the cornice, the apostles
are seated in pairs, their poses recalling Sistine Ceiling
nudes, while in the center Christ ascends into heaven.

18.43. CORREGGIO. Vision of St. John the Evangelist. 1520-22.
Dome fresco, greatest width 31 '8" (9.65 m). S. Giovanni Evangelista,
Parma.

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The muscular power of the figures, who are supported by
putti like those surrounding Michelangelo’s figures of God
on his flights through space, is also reminiscent of Sistine
Chapel figures. The foreshortenings reveal a knowledge of
Michelangelo’s Brazen Serpent spandrel (see fig. 17.39),
and the idea of representing a divine figure floating past an
opening must have been suggested by the Separation of
Light from Darkness (see fig. 17.35). But the handling of
the forms shows Correggio’s softer style, which lacks
Michelangelo’s tension and linear definition. Correggio
gave us a surprising view of the ascending Christ from
below, sharply foreshortened from an unconventional
angle. To view the scene correctly, you must hold the illus-
tration overhead.

Such foreshortened figures are plentiful in Correggio’s
frescoed dome of the Cathedral of Parma (figs.
18.44-18.45). The somewhat damaged composition,
prototype of innumerable Baroque domes, shows the
Assumption of the Virgin. The central figure is surrounded
by a ring of figures who are for the most part nude. As
we watch, this group seems to ascend, leaving the
apostles below.

In Correggio’s dome compositions we are dealing with
rapture in the etymological sense of the word: the central
figure is rapt — torn loose from earthly moorings — and
carried upward as the spectator is intended to be, vicari-
ously at least. Correggio's patrons seem to have realized
that this same style would be appropriate for scenes of

18.44. CORREGGIO. Assumption of the Virgin. 1526-30. Dome fresco, diameter of base of dome 35 TO" x 37T1" (10.9 x 11.6 m).
Cathedral, Parma. Commissioned by the authorities of Parma Cathedral.

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18.45. CORREGGIO. The Virgin
Mary flanked by Adam and Eve,
detail of Assumption of the Virgin,
fig. 18.44.

18.46. CORREGGIO .Jupiter and
Ganymede. Early 1530s. Canvas,

64 V 2 x 28" (164 x 71 cm).
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.
Commissioned by Federigo Gonzaga.

sexual seduction, as is evident in a series made for Federigo
Gonzaga, first duke of Mantua, who intended to line a
room in the Palazzo Ducale in Mantua with the Loves of
Jupiter — a far cry from Mantegna’s chaste frescoes nearby
(see fig. 15.25). Jupiter was a mythical ancestor of the
Gonzaga family and, in his many amorous exploits, not
unlike Federigo. In Correggio’s Jupiter and Ganymede (fig.
18.46), Ganymede swings in the grip of Jupiter, disguised
as a fierce eagle whose wings darken the air. Dazzlingly
foreshortened, the boy Ganymede looks back toward the
spectator with an expression that seems to combine fear
and pleasure. Below the floating figure, mountains and
valleys lead to the horizon. The boy’s leave-taking is dram-
atized by the leap of his white dog, desperate at his
master’s departure.

Jupiter and Io (fig. 18.47) was equally daring. The jeal-
ousy of Jupiter’s wife, Juno, forced her promiscuous
husband to assume the guise of a cloud in order to seduce
Io, a mortal maiden. Io sits in a pose familiar to us from
Raphael’s frescoes in the Farnesina (see fig. 17.73). Her
head thrown back, she accepts the embrace of one huge,
cloudy paw, as the face of Jupiter materializes from the
cloud to plant a kiss on her lips. The contrast between the
trembling warmth of Io’s flesh and the mystery of the
attack by the cold yet divine cloud increases the intensity
of what is clearly a representation of sexual desire and
climax, parallels that experienced by the saints in Correg-
gio’s altarpieces. The only contemporary artist who could
rival Correggio in his ability to accept human sexuality as
a subject for art at this time was Titian.

576 .

THE CINQUECENTO

18.47. CORREGGIO. /wp/ter audio. Early 1530s.
Canvas, 64V2 x 28" (164 x 71 cm). Kunsjhistorisches
Museum, Vienna. Commissioned by Federigo Gonzaga.

Parmigianino

Correggio’s slightly younger contemporary in Parma,
Francesco Mazzola, called Parmigianino (1503-1540),
stands in strong contrast to Correggio’s High Renaissance,
even proto-Baroque style. Parmigianino introduced
himself in his startling Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror
(fig. 18.48). Vasari, who knew the picture when it
belonged to the letter writer and lampooner Pietro Aretino,
wrote that Parmigianino painted it just before his depar-
ture for Rome in 1524, when he was twenty-one, to show

18.48. PARMIGIANINO. Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror. 1524.
Panel, diameter 9 V 2 " (24 cm). Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

his skill in “the subtleties of art.” Fascinated by his own
reflection in a barber’s convex mirror, he decided to repro-
duce it exactly. He had a carpenter turn a wooden sphere
on a lathe and saw off a section similar in size to a convex
mirror. On this surface he painted himself looking outward
with an air of utter detachment, “so beautiful,” Vasari
said, “that he seemed an angel rather than a man.” His
face is far enough back from the surface not to suffer
distortion, but his hand and sleeve are enlarged, and the
skylight of his studio and the opposite wall are both
sharply curved.

In the High Renaissance, self-portraits are relatively rare
but they began to proliferate in the 1520s. Some are reveal-
ing and even disturbing. Leonardo had called the mirror
the “master of painters,” and he asserted that painters’
minds should resemble it because it “transforms itself into
the color of that which it has as object, and is filled with
as many likenesses as there are things before it.” But he
was not referring to a curved mirror, the effects of which
he compared to the distortion made by moving water on
objects seen through it. Parmigianino, however, delighted
in these distortions.

The commission for Parmigianino’s bravura Vision of
St. Jerome (fig. 18.49) required the presence of the two
saints in the lower part of the painting, but the artist chose
to separate them, with the Baptist dominating the lower
portion while Jerome is shown sleeping to suggest that the
painting represents his vision. With an exaggerated
gesture, John directs us to the Virgin and Child, who are

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floating in mid-air, a position that became popular for
them in the sixteenth century. The pose of the Virgin and
Child but not their levitation is based on a marble group
of the same subject carved by Michelangelo and sent to
Bruges in Flanders: Parmigianino could not have seen the
work but his use of the position is another indication of
how the masterworks of High Renaissance masters were
known and adapted by later generations. The strained
figura serpentinata pose of the Baptist, the emphasis on

18.49. PARMIGIANINO. Vision of St. Jerome . 1526-27.

Panel, 11 '6" x 5 1 (3.43 x 1.52 m). National Gallery, London.
Commissioned by Maria Bufalini for her husband’s family
chapel at S. Salvatore in Lauro, Rome.

St. John the Baptist was the patron saint of Maria’s father-in-law,
while Jerome was chosen because of his connection with the legal
profession, which was practiced by both her husband and his
father. After the Sack of Rome, the painting was taken by the
Bufalini to their palace in Citta di Castello. The commission
originally called for flanking panels of Joachim with Anna and
the Conception of the Virgin, and this is probably the reason for
the unusually narrow format.

foreshortened forms, and the tall, unusually proportioned
figures are clearly mannered. In a darkness that veils any
possibility of establishing spatial relationships, rays of
light flash from the Madonna’s head and shoulders like
shards of ice.

Parmigianino’s interest in elegant poses and gestures
comes to the forefront in his Madonna and Child with
Angels , now known as the Madonna of the Long Neck
(fig. 18.50), which was commissioned in 1534 but left
unfinished when the artist died in 1540. The Christ Child
is asleep in a pose suggestive of death; his left arm hangs as
in Michelangelo’s Rome Pietd (see fig. 16.37), an appro-
priation that exposes Parmigianino’s interest in quoting art
rather than representing nature. At the left are five grace-
ful figures: one holds a huge urn and looks up at the
Virgin; another, possibly a self-portrait, gazes past us. The
Virgin’s body and neck are dramatically attenuated, and
her forehead and glossy curls are adorned with ropes of
pearls and an enormous ruby. Even more astonishing than
her long neck, perhaps, is the length of her fingers. The
manner in which her clinging dress reveals her breast
shows Parmigianino challenging the decorum of the
period. Whether or not the Christ Child’s head was to
remain bald is uncertain. Joseph was shaved while in
prison and a tradition insists that Christ was too.

But even more disturbing than any of the figural repre-
sentations is the incomplete column, smooth and polished
but without a capital, that stands in the background. Its
base reveals that the artist intended to represent a sharply
receding temple portico. As in the works of Beccafumi, the
illusion of space, which had been rational and geometric,
is now full of disjunctures and ambiguities. The figure with
a scroll at the base of the column represents St. Jerome,
who turns toward the missing figure of St. Francis. The
two saints were required by the commission: Francis was a
reference to the patron’s husband, while Jerome was
important for female patrons because of his connection
with the worship of the Virgin Mary.

578

THE CINQUECENTO

Perhaps contemporary with the Madonna of the Long
Neck is Cupid Carving His Bow (fig. 18.51), which was
ordered by a private patron. The epicene youth turns his
naked back to us yet twists his head to engage us as if we
were co-conspirators. With one foot braced on books,
apparently symbolizing love’s triumph over reason, he
carves his bow from a freshly cut sapling. A putto in the
background screams in pain as his companion mischie-
vously twists his chubby arm, trying to force his already
burned hand back against Cupid’s hot leg; the young god
of love is evidently burning with passion. The central
figure, drawn with fantastic linear precision in the con-
tours, shimmering with reflected lights, is painted with a

18.50. PARMIGIANINO. Madonna and Child
with Angels and St. Jerome , now popularly known
as the Madonna of the Long Neck. 1534^40. Panel,
7'1" x 4'4" (2.19 x 1.35 m). Uffizi Gallery,
Florence. Commissioned by Elena Baiardi for her
husband’s funerary chapel in the Church of the
Servites, Parma. Despite its unfinished state, the
panel was placed on its altar in 1542.

The origin of the painting’s nickname is evident, but
it has been pointed out by Mary Vaccaro that the
patron’s father wrote Petrarchan poetry in which
he praised a woman’s neck as the most important
indication of female beauty.

18.51. PARMIGIANINO. Cupid Cawing His
Bow. 1535. Panel, 53 x 2 55V' (135 x 65.3 cm).
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Commissioned
by Cavalier Baiardo.

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mother-of-pearl surface that dazzled Peter Paul Rubens,
who made a copy of this picture.

Parmigianino found an additional source of income by
working with printmakers, creating original designs that
could be reproduced and sold on the thriving print market.
One of the most dramatic of these prints is Diogenes , a
chiaroscuro woodcut made by Ugo da Carpi (d. c. 1525)
after a drawing Parmigianino made explicitly for this
purpose (fig. 18.52). Vasari credited Ugo with the devel-
opment of the chiaroscuro woodcut, but the impetus seems
to have come from northern Europe, where earlier exam-
ples are known. Ugo’s example, however, is a brilliant
demonstration of the possibilities of the technique, which
requires several blocks — in this case, four — each printed
using a different color. The different tones create the effect
of chiaroscuro, hence the name of the technique.

Diogenes, the ancient philosopher who is said to have
lived in a barrel, is shown almost nude while studying
several large books. His complex pose demonstrates
Parmigianino’s skill at composing the figure, and, in com-
bination with the drapery swirling around him, suggests

18.52. UGO DA CARPI. Diogenes , after PARMIGIANINO.
1527-30. Chiaroscuro woodcut, 5M x 13%" (14.7 x 34.4 cm).
Albertina, Vienna.

Diogenes’ excitement over his study. The chicken is a witty
visual reference to Plato, who is said to have defined man
as a “featherless biped.” The technique is so complex that
it is hard to determine exactly what the individual blocks
must have looked like, and the printing of each in perfect
registration with the previous one must have been difficult.
The combination of technical skill with intriguing subject
must have made this print a possession prized by the con-
noisseurs of the period. The collaborative nature of this
effort is revealed by the dual signatures of printmaker and
designer on the book in the lower left, which Diogenes not
very subtly indicates with his stick.

Pordenone

A shocking contrast to the refined sensuality of the two
painters of Parma is furnished by Giovanni Antonio de
Sacchis (1483/84-1 539), called Pordenone after the town
of his birth in Friuli, a sub-Alpine region northeast of
Venice. Among the early Cinquecento painters of northern
Italy, Pordenone is surely the most startling. He seems to
have been a person of unbridled ambition and few scru-
ples. If the charges made in court were true, he hired a
band of cutthroats to murder his brother Baldassare so
that he could lay hands on their entire paternal inheri-
tance. He shuttled back and forth throughout northern
Italy and even to Genoa, producing altarpieces, organ
panels, and frescoes with amazing speed. In 1516 he jour-
neyed to Umbria for some fresco commissions, and it has
been presumed that he also visited Rome; no visit is docu-
mented, however, and recent scholarship has questioned
this assumption.

Brought up under diluted Venetian influences in the
provinces, Pordenone somehow absorbed the latest
achievements of Michelangelo and Raphael. He never fully
detached himself from Friuli, though from 1528 on he was
active in Venice and its environs, where he was esteemed
for his frescoes on the outer walls of palaces and clois-
ters — exposed to the weather and thus doomed to ruin —
and for his works in the Doge’s Palace, destroyed in fires
in 1574 and 1577. It is difficult to assess the effect of these
lost works on Titian (see Chapter 19) and, more probably,
on Tintoretto, of whose dramatic style Pordenone was a
precursor. We must judge him now mostly by his surviving
fresco cycles.

Pordenone’s most powerful works are part of a Passion
series in the Cathedral of Cremona. A cycle of the life of
Christ had been begun by local Cremonese painters and
continued by Romanino of Brescia. Pordenone’s scenes on
the nave arcade, which include a disturbing Nailing of
Christ to the Cross, culminate in his enormous representa-
tion of the Crucifixion (fig. 18.53) on the interior west

580

THE CINQUECENTO

18.53. PORDENONE. Crucifixion . 1521. Fresco, c. 29 x 39’ (c. 9 x 12 m). Cathedral, Cremona. Commissioned by the massari , the three
annually elected patrician citizens who led the group in charge of the cathedral and its decoration (the fabbricieri). Pordenone seems to have
painted this large fresco between May and October of 1521.

wall, where the Last Judgment is usually represented (see
fig. 3.1). Christ’s cross is thrust off center and all three
crosses are unexpectedly set at diagonals, a compositional
device derived from northern art. The cross of the unre-
pentant thief is truncated by the frame and is, remarkably,
seen from behind; this placement and the violence with
which the soldier breaks the struggling thief’s legs pro-
duces a powerfully dramatic effect. To the left, the con-
verted thief also struggles, but in an attempt to be closer to
the object of his devotion, the figure of Christ. As the
Virgin Mary collapses, her friends rush to her side. Adding
drama above are the billowing clouds that try to hide the
sun (Luke 23:45: “And the sun was darkened”).

The center of the composition is dominated by a figure
holding a gigantic sword. Following the logic required by
Renaissance perspective, he is even larger than Christ. His
dramatic gesture towards Christ suggests that he is the cen-
turion who was converted at the moment of the Christ’s
death (Matthew 27:54). In the years 1515-21, when these
frescoes were being painted, Cremona was occupied by the
French, and foreign mercenary soldiers were often housed
in the city and nearby countryside. The figure of a soldier
would, therefore, have been a familiar one to the citizens,
who could have identified both with him and with the

event to which he directs their attention. The violent move-
ment that encompasses the main figures can be explained
in part by Pordenone’s adherence to St. Matthew’s state-
ment that “the earth did quake and the rocks rent”
(27:51), as seen in the fissure in the right foreground and
the frightened response of the horse, which has one foot
over the abyss. The earthquake seems about to sunder the
bad thief and the others on the right from Christ. Porde-
none’s fresco relies largely on physical effects to capture
the drama and pathos of the Crucifixion in an effort to
engage the local citizenry in the suffering and redemption
that underlies the cycle as a whole.

Antonio da Sangallo the Elder and
the Younger

An influential architect working during this period was the
Florentine Antonio da Sangallo (1455-1534), the younger
brother of Giuliano (see fig. 18.2). He is now known as
Antonio da Sangallo the Elder to distinguish him from his
nephew, also named Antonio, whom we will discuss
shortly. During his youth, Antonio the Elder was active as
a military architect, and he also designed religious and

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5 8i

civic structures for minor centers. He was engaged, for
example, to complete the church of Santa Maria del Calci-
naio at Cortona, left unfinished at the death of Francesco
di Giorgio (see figs. 14.11-14.13). When Giuliano died in
1516, Antonio was left in a position of prominence, and
two years later he accepted one of the major commissions
of the period: the pilgrimage church of the Madonna di
San Biagio at Montepulciano (figs. 18.1, 18.54-18.55).
The church was built to commemorate a miracle that took
place on one of the slopes surrounding the city, and thus
Antonio had a site in the midst of a magnificent landscape
with no pre-existing constructions.

Antonio chose a Greek-cross plan crowned with a dome,
similar to that of his brother Giuliano’s Santa Maria delle
Carceri at Prato, an unfinished commission he also inher-
ited (see figs. 12.21-12.23). But he eschewed the typically
Florentine surface of the latter, with its elegant marble
incrustation and constructed his church of blocks of
travertine that confer an unexpected massiveness. The
main facade was to be flanked by free-standing towers, but
only one was built.

The three cubic stories of the tower follow a canonical
succession of Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian orders. The
octagonal fourth story was not built until 1564, and may
or may not follow the original plans. Because only one
tower was completed, some of the High Renaissance effect
Antonio intended is dissipated, but it is not hard to
imagine the tension that would have existed between the
two massive verticals and the relatively planar facade.

The richly articulated tower has square corner piers with
engaged columns. As a result the intervening wall spaces
are sharply recessed and the entablatures broken. Giuliano
had drawn a Roman Doric order almost identical to this
one, including the square corner piers and the ornamented

18.54. ANTONIO DA SANGALLO THE ELDER. Plan of
Madonna di S. Biagio, Montepulciano (see fig. 18.1). 1518-34 .

necking band, from the ruins of the Basilica Emilia in
Rome, and he utilized these motifs in his design for the
facade of San Lorenzo in Florence (see fig. 18.2).

In what ways is the younger brother original, or did he
merely adapt what might be called, after all, company
property? Perhaps his originality lies in the new sense of
drama, never present in Giuliano’s work and never absent
from that of Antonio. A struggle seems to be going on
between the clustered column-and-pier at the corners of
the campanile and the massive wall. The former is
enlivened not by the more traditional windows favored by
Giuliano, but by tabernacles capped on the second story
with segmental pediments whose lower cornices are
broken, a motif later used by Michelangelo. The jagged
effect of the entablatures is heightened on the fourth story
by corner obelisks. And even the raking cornices of the
pediments of the three facades are broken against the
sky. The dome, so impressive a feature of the building
when seen from behind the apse, makes little impact
behind the main facade, where it would have been out-
flanked by the towers.

The effect of the interior is overwhelming (fig. 18.55)
not in terms of the definition of the space, which one
would expect in the Brunelleschi-Alberti-Bramante tradi-
tion, but because of the impact of what seems to be brute
mass. The accent is not on the walls but on the articulation
of the corners — both recessed and jutting — which are
treated almost as if they were the inner walls of the ground
stories of the towers. The Roman Doric order is identical,
inside and out, but these strong projections appear some-
what pugnacious when used on the interior. Because the
inside walls are travertine, the supports are not visually
separated from the walls in the traditional Florentine
fashion. The barrel vaults, however, are covered in white
intonaco , with the result that the ground floor seems to be
supporting soaring arches against an expanse of white sky.

Montepulciano, a Cinquecento cultural center in spite of
its small size, is lined with palaces by major architects,
including several by or attributed to Antonio da Sangallo
the Elder. The most original of these is the Palazzo Tarugi
(fig. 18.56), which has two facades fronting on the princi-
pal piazza opposite the cathedral. Antonio made each
facade roughly symmetrical, but he varied the articulation
to introduce an open corner arcade on the ground floor
and an open loggia, now closed, on the top floor. Conve-
nient and delightful as these corner porches must have
been for the inhabitants, who probably requested them,
they violate the symmetry of the facades in spite of the
heavy central arch. In a reversal of the traditional pattern,
the lower order is Ionic, the upper Doric, and the Ionic
columns of the ground story, perched on lofty podia, rise
to embrace the piano nobile as well — an early example of

582

THE CINQUECENTO

Left: 1 8.55. ANTONIO DA SANG A I LO
THE ELDER. Interior, Madonna di
S. Biagio, Montcpulciano (see fig. 18. 1 ).
1518-34. Travertine, white plaster.

18.56. ANTONIO DA SANGALLO THE ELDER. Palazzo Tarugi, Montepulciano. c. 1515. Travertine.

• 583

NEW DEVELOPMENTS, c. 1 5 20- 5 0

rhe giant order later used by Michelangelo. No string-
course separates the two first floors, so the windows of the
piano nobile seem to be floating upward to bump against
the balustrade that runs across the second floor. A com-
parison with Bramante’s High Renaissance Palazzo
Caprini (see fig. 17.19) demonstrates how the younger
architect combined complexity and experimentation to
create a new and novel type of palace facade.

The last member of the Sangallo family to concern us is
Antonio da Sangallo the Younger (1485-1546), nephew of
Giuliano and Antonio the Elder. He was an imaginative
architect whose two major undertakings came to grief at
the hands of Michelangelo. Originally a carpenter respon-
sible for the colossal centering needed to build Bramante’s
four arches to uphold the dome of St. Peter’s, Antonio soon
became an architect in his own right. In 1517, Alessandro
Farnese (later Pope Paul III) acquired a palace in the center
of Rome and decided to rebuild it from Antonio’s designs.
That it is the most majestic and influential of all Roman
Renaissance palaces is due to the combined efforts of
Antonio and Michelangelo.

Antonio’s design was ambitious from the start, compris-
ing an immense rectangle, its facade a towering block of

masonry with rustication restricted to the corners and the
central, arched entrance (figs. 18.57-18.58). Both the
rows of applied pilasters, in what might be called the
Alberti-Laurana tradition, and Bramante’s engaged
columns are replaced with regularly spaced windows
enframed with columns and pediment — the so-called
aedicula window. On the ground floor, Antonio adopted
the “kneeling window” type (windows with consoles
below) used by Michelangelo in 1517 at the Palazzo
Medici (see figs. 6.23-6.24); here they are connected by a
stringcourse that continues their sills. For the second-floor
aediculae, Antonio used a Corinthian order, supported on
high bases that rest on a stringcourse and unified by a
smaller stringcourse at sill level, as on the ground story.
The windows have alternating triangular and arched pedi-
ments, except for the central one, which was originally a
large arch, repeating the motif of the entrance portal
below. The third story is a combination of both lower
ones, for while the columned aediculae now rest on con-
soles like those of the first floor, the windows are arched so
that they break into the triangular pediments. All the archi-
tectural trim, including the massive quoins at the corners,
is in stone set off against the flat surface of tan brick walls.

18.57. ANTONIO DA SANGALLO THE YOUNGER and MICHELANGELO. Palazzo Farnese, Rome. 1517-27, 1546-50. Brick, stone.
Commissioned by Alessandro Farnese (later Pope Paul III; see fig. 19.21). For the palace’s courtyard, see fig. 20.7.

5 8 4

THE CINQUECENTO

18.58. ANTONIO DA SANGALLO THE YOUNGER. Plan of
Palazzo Farnese, Rome. 1517-27.

The grand effect of this facade depends largely on a
single change made by Michelangelo. Antonio’s cornice
would probably have been narrow, more or less on the
scale of the stringcourses between the stories, and the
whole would have created a rather diffuse impression.
Only the front wing of the palace had been carried out

before the Sack of Rome in 1527, and only, irregularly,
through the level of the piano nobile. Not until 1539-40
did the patron, now Pope Paul III, resume the original
design, with some internal changes, under the original
architect. But in 1546, dissatisfied with Antonio’s design
for the cornice, the pope called in Sebastiano del Piombo,
Perino del Vaga, Giorgio Vasari, and Michelangelo to
provide competing designs. He accepted the colossal
cornice by Michelangelo, which combines elements from
various orders and is even heavier than that of the
Palazzo Strozzi (see fig. 12.17); Antonio’s walls had to be
rebuilt in some places to provide an adequate foundation.
According to Vasari’s probably exaggerated account,
such was Antonio’s displeasure that he died of shock
and grief.

Michelangelo’s cornice imparts unity to the structure. A
second alteration by Michelangelo also drew the elements
of the building to a central focus: he eliminated the arch of
the centralized opening on the second story and framed it
with the second floor’s Corinthian order in a column-
pilaster-column grouping, allowing space for the insertion
of the Farnese arms on enormous cartouches.

Antonio’s three-aisled entrance (fig. 18.59) is a little
basilica in itself, for the central aisle is barrel-vaulted, the
narrow side aisles flat-roofed, and both are supported by a
Roman Doric order. The low, almost cavernous effect is
increased by the narrow entablature, which makes the
ribs of the coffered vault seem to rise directly from the

18.59. ANTONIO DA
SANGALLO THE YOUNGER.
Entrance loggia, Palazzo Farnese,
Rome. Begun before 1524.

NEW DEVELOPMENTS, c. 1 5 2 0- 5 0

585

columns. It must have been designed before Giulio
Romano left for Mantua in 1524, because Giulio adapted
ife idea at the Palazzo del Te. Antonio’s courtyard would
have been conventional, using the superimposed orders
of the Colosseum, but, as we shall see, Michelangelo
redesigned the third story to create a different effect
see fig. 20.7).

Baldassare Peruzzi

Baldassare Peruzzi (1481-1536), one of the leaders of the
High Renaissance (see figs. 17.64-17.67), left unity and
simplicity behind in the extraordinary Palazzo Massimo
alle Colonne in Rome (fig. 18.60). Built at a point where
the once narrow street curved to follow the outline of the
ancient Odeon of Domitian once on this site, the facade
would have been visible only in segments as the observer
walked by (today the widened street allows the complete
view seen in our photograph). Peruzzi’s design, like that of
Vasari a generation later for the Uffizi in Florence (see fig.
20.41), takes advantage of a difficult setting; the sequence
of supports as the spectator passed the palazzo — pilasters,
single column, paired columns, entrance, paired columns,
single column, pilasters — would have created an experi-
ence in time as well as in space. Peruzzi chose a Tuscan
order deprived even of triglyphs so that the eye is led
around the curved facade without interruption. From
street level, the windows of the piano nobile , each on its
broad podium, must have seemed to move around the
bend in a solemn, regular rhythm, while the third and
fourth stories float in the rusticated wall, their window
frames decorated with moldings and scrolls.

18.60. BALDASSARE PERUZZI. Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne,
Rome. Begun 1532. Travertine. Commissioned by Pietro, Luca, and
Angelo Massimo.

Giulio Romano

It is fitting to close with a fantastic structure: the Palazzo
del Te in Mantua, which Giulio Romano (c. 1499-1546),
Raphael’s pupil and heir, constructed and decorated from
1527 to 1534 for Federigo Gonzaga, a marquis who was
made first duke of Mantua by the Hapsburg Emperor
Charles V while the building was under way (and for
whom Correggio painted his fresco cycle of the Loves
of Jupiter; see figs. 18.46-18.47). The palace (figs.
18.61-18.62) is named for the area in which it is situated;
the Te is a peaceful island that connected the fortified city
of Mantua — then surrounded entirely by lakes — with the
mainland. Federigo established stables there for horse-
breeding. The first project, possibly executed in 1526,
added a frescoed banqueting hall to the stables, but this
structure was soon expanded into a small country palace
to be used for entertaining.

Charles V visited Mantua twice, in 1530 and 1532. Such
events demanded that festival decorations be erected
throughout the city and required Giulio Romano and his
assistants to design pageants, costumes, and stage sets. On
both visits Charles was entertained at Federigo’s Palazzo
del Te. At an evening celebration held in his honor in
1530, for example, the palazzo was lit with many torches,
and three hours of dancing, starting at 11, were followed
by an elaborate supper.

Since the palazzo is really a country villa rather than a
city palace, there was room for it to be low and long, with
the main rooms on the ground floor, and servants’ and
store rooms on a shallow mezzanine above. Giulio united
these two stories with unfluted pilasters in the rather severe
Roman Doric order, probably derived from the ancient
Basilica Emilia in Rome. A feeling of tension, however, is
created by contrast between the restrained pilasters
and the heavy rustication of windows and entrance arches
(see fig. 18.61).

The articulation of the courtyard is even more unex-
pected (fig. 18.63). Engaged columns of great nobility have
replaced the pilasters of the exterior. The stringcourse
separating ground floor and mezzanine has vanished and
blocks of various sizes, some more rusticated than others,
fill the background. The niches are capped by pediments
whose raking angles do not quite meet at the apex, as if
they are being forced apart by the keystones below them,
which are larger and more rusticated than the blocks that
flank them. There is one more unexpected element here,
for between every two columns, whether widely spaced or
paired, the central triglyph drops down, leaving a blank
hole above it. No Renaissance architect had ever broken
the rules of ancient articulation so dramatically. Perhaps
Giulio had noticed collapsing triglyphs in the tottering

586 *

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18.61. GIULIO ROMANO. North facade, Palazzo del Te, Mantua. 1527—34. Commissioned by Federigo Gonzaga.

18.62. GIULIO ROMANO.

Plan of Palazzo del Te.

ruins that surrounded his house in Rome (he was brought
up next door to the Forum of Trajan) or at the Colosseum.
At the Palazzo del Te, however, he did not use this motif to
create a picturesque, imitation ruin. It is too systematic for
that, for it recurs at regular intervals.

On both exterior and interior of the Palazzo del Te the
elements of architecture seem to be battling with each
other. The Renaissance harmony of forms has given in to a
conflict that seems to originate in the forms themselves.
The effect on the contemporary observer must have been
dramatic. Giulio introduced novelty for its own sake into
the history of architecture. His experiments have few heirs,

although some motifs were revived by the Post-Modem
architects of the late twentieth century.

The interior of the Palazzo del Te had rooms unmatched
in their time for luxury and splendor. Now they are
stripped of the furnishings mentioned in inventories, but
the pictorial decoration, which Giulio and his pupils exe-
cuted at breakneck speed, still survives. The story of Cupid
and Psyche, which in the Villa Farnesina had been limited
to its heavenly episodes (see figs. 17.71-17.73), is told in
detail in the Sala di Psiche (fig. 18.64). The wedding feast
covers two walls in a panorama of gods, nymphs, satyrs,
and animals, while the wedding couple are shown reclining
on an elaborate bed. Figures, mostly nude, are set against
peacock-green foliage that is heightened by the silver and
gold table service. One suspects that these vessels were
matched with real ones when Charles V ate lunch alone in
this room in 1530; Federigo did not dine with him but had
the honor of holding his napkin.

In sharp contrast to the voluptuous wedding fresco is the
fun-houselike decoration of the Sala dei Giganti (fig.
18.65), a room of the same size and shape as the Sala di
Psiche at the opposite corner of the palace. The entire
room, doors and all, was painted in a continuous repre-
sentation of the destruction of the rebellious giants who
had attempted to assault Mount Olympus as they are
smote by thunderbolts from the hand of Jupiter. The
palaces and caves of the colossal giants seem to collapse
upon them — and upon us as we watch. There was once a
rough fireplace which, when lit, suggested the consump-
tion of the giants by flames. For those who had no idea

NEW DEVELOPMENTS, c. 1 5 2 0 -5 0

587

18.63. GIULIO ROMANO.
Courtyard, Palazzo del Te.

what they were going to see, being ushered into this room
must have been a high point in the entertainment offered
at the palazzo.

These frescoes, painted in a hurry after the emperor’s
first visit in 1530 so that he could see them completed
when he returned two years later, have been interpreted as

an expression of feelings widespread among Italians. After
the annihilation of so many values that had seemed per-
manent until the Reformation, the Sack of Rome, and
other distressing events, many welcomed the new order of
absolutism. The Renaissance values of individualism, mod-
eration, and balance were being questioned.

18.64. GIULIO ROMANO. Wedding Feast of Cupid and Psyche. 1527-30. Fresco, Sala di Psiche, Palazzo del Te, Mantua. Commissioned by
Federigo Gonzaga.

Secular decorations in the palaces and villas of rulers were clearly made to impress important and not-so-important visitors. The Holy Roman
Emperor Charles V dined in this room when he visited Mantua in 1530, soon after the frescoes were completed.

588 *

THE CINQUECENTO

18.65. GIULIO ROMANO. The Gods on Niount Olympus and the Fall of the Giants. 1530—32. Fresco. Sala dei Giganti, Palazzo del
Mantua. Commissioned by Federigo Gonzaga. The dizzying floor pattern is not the original.

NEW DEVELOPMENTS, c. 1 5 2 0 - 5 0

589

HIGH AND LATE RENAISSANCE IN
VENICE AND ON THE MAINLAND

I n 1511, Venice was flourishing as one of the
leading centers for book publication in Europe.
Like many cities that support the publication of
books and build great libraries (see fig. 19.60),
Venice was a center of lively debate and a crucible
of new ideas. Among the many books published in Venice
in 1511 were new editions of De Architecture the treatise
on architecture and engineering dedicated to the Emperor
Augustus by its author, Vitruvius, and Geography by the
ancient mathematician Ptolemy, with maps by Bernardus
Sylvanus (fl. 1490-1511; fig. 19.2). The new view of the
world that Sylvanus’s maps offered Venetians and others
must have been shocking, for recent explorations in the
Americas and Asia had documented that the world was
much larger and more complex than previously imagined.
Although a Franciscan priest from north Italy had reached
what is today Beijing by the 1220s, and Marco Polo, a
young Venetian merchant, had traveled to the court of
Kublai Khan later that same century, maps such as those of
Sylvanus visually expressed the small scale of the Venetian
empire within what must have seemed a new and chal-
lenging world. The excitement of living in a period of
exploration and new discoveries must have been palpable
in Venice at this time.

Several Venetian Quattrocento painters continued to be
active into the early Cinquecento, including Vittore
Carpaccio and Giovanni Bellini, who carried on creating
compositions and innovative interpretations until his

19.2. BERNARDUS SYLVANUS. Ptolemaic World Map. 1511.
From Ptholemei Alexandrini liber geographiae (Book of Geography
by Claudius Ptolemaeus of Alexandria), printed by Jacopo Pencio,
Venice. Black and red ink printed on vellum and hand-colored,

16 6 /i6 x 22 V 4 1 ' (41.5 x 56.5 cm). British Library, London (G.8176).

death in 1516. During the first decade of the new century,
two innovative new painters appeared in Venice: Gior-
gione, who lived and worked only briefly, and Titian,
who remained the single most important figure in Venetian
painting until the last quarter of the century. About
the middle of the century, the painters Tintoretto and
Paolo Veronese made their appearance. Lorenzo Lotto

Opposite : 19.1. LORENZO LOTTO. Annunciation, c. 1534—35. Canvas, 5 ' 5 3 /s " x 3 1 8 'Vs (1.66 x 1.14 m). life Church of Sta. Maria sopra
Mercanti, Recanati. Probably commissioned by the Confraternity of Sta. Maria sopra Mercanti.

Lotto’s Annunciation is remarkably well preserved, perhaps because of its location in a rural church. Recanati is near Loreto, the site of the
shrine of the Virgin’s house (see p. 689).

HIGH AND LATE RENAISSANCE IN VENICE AND ON THE MAINLAND

59 I

carried the Venetian style from Lombardy to the
Marches, the school of Ferrara fell under the spell of
Venice and, after an important work by Titian arrived in
Brescia, a new school arose in that Lombard city under
Venetian influence.

Although Venetian art in the early Cinquecento radiates
security and splendor, the Republic of St. Mark was actu-
ally in a somewhat precarious situation. Perhaps only its
location saved Venice from the peril of dynastic rule, which
had extinguished the liberties of republican Florence.
Venice was, in fact, involved in the warfare between France
and the Holy Roman Empire that devastated so much of
Italy. Moreover, it had profited from the fall of the Borgia
family in 1503 by annexing many papal territories in the
Romagna. Not satisfied with recapturing these in 1506,
Pope Julius II in 1508 organized the League of Cambrai,
which during the ensuing months temporarily stripped
Venice of almost all its possessions on the Italian mainland.
Most were eventually regained, but throughout the six-
teenth century Venice was compelled to adopt a defensive
position with regard to the European monarchies, and
especially the Holy Roman Empire, which under Charles V
had assumed mastery over much of Europe. It is ironic that
the greatest Venetian painter, Titian, found important
patrons in the Hapsburg rulers Charles V and his son
Philip II.

Throughout the sixteenth century, Venice maintained its
reputation as the most important European center for the
production of luxury glass objects. Extravagant products
of the abilities of Venetian glassblowers and designers were
prized in European courts. One of the rare surviving exam-
ples from the first half of the century is a Venetian nef (fig.
19.3). A nef (“ship”) was a table centerpiece, often elabo-
rate, for serving salt or other rare condiments (for a gold
and enamel example commissioned for the table of the
king of France, see fig. 20.21). That Venetian wealth was
intimately tied to trade by sea made vessels such as this an
especially appropriate product for the local glass factories.
The delicate strands of colored glass, leaping fish, and
applied, mold-pressed satyr masks of this elaborate blown-
cristallo vessel, showcase the skills available at the Venet-
ian glass factories. Cristallo , a clear, almost weightless
glass, was developed by Venetian glassworkers around
1520; previously the Venetians had specialized in making
relatively simple shapes in colored glass decorated with
painted details (“enameled glass”). Cristallo was highly
flexible and encouraged experimentation, much like the
Venetian artists’ exploration of the possibilities inherent in
oil paint during this period. The survival of this highly
fragile nef suggests that it was probably seldom used and
may have been more an object of display and admiration
than a utilitarian work.

19.3. ERMONIA VIVARINI (attributed to the workshop of).

Nef. c. 1525-50. Cristallo with added detail in blue glass and
mold-pressed satyr-mask medallions, height 1 L 7 /s M (30.2 cm).

British Museum, London.

In 1521 Ermonia Vivarini of Venice received a special privilege to
produce vessels in the shape of ships. Venice’s glass factories were
located on the nearby island of Murano so that the fires of the ovens
were not a threat to the safety of the city.

Giorgione

Giorgio (in Venetian dialect, Zorzi) Barbarelli was born in
Castelfranco, on the Venetian mainland, probably about
1475-77, and came to Venice at an early age. A few docu-
ments record his activities in 1507-8, and in 1510 he died
of the plague. According to a tradition retold by Vasari,
“Big George” (“-one” is the Italian suffix for “big”) was
given to worldly delights, was a good conversationalist, a
great lover, and sang beautifully, accompanying himself on
the lute. As a pupil of Bellini, Giorgione continued the tra-
dition established by his master of using landscape to
convey mood and enhance meaning. The late landscapes of
Bellini and the work of Giorgione explore nature in a new
way. It is revealing that at the moment when Bellini and
Giorgione were placing a new emphasis on landscape and

5 9 2.

THE CINQUECENTO

nature, Venice possessed little nature to enjoy. Perhaps the
interest in landscape on the part of artists and patrons can
be explained by the absence of landscape from daily expe-
rience. Similarly, the emphasis on landscape that developed
during the Romantic movement in England — nature
poetry and nature painting — went hand in hand with the
Industrial Revolution, which was rapidly devouring the
countryside around major urban centers.

There is almost as much disagreement about the works
of Giorgione as there is about those of Giotto. The Venet-
ian painter’s only surviving altarpiece, the Enthroned
Madonna with Sts. Liber alls and Francis (fig. 19.4),
remains in situ in the cathedral of his home town. Even this
simple symmetrical composition is not without its sur-
prises. Ordinarily, a Renaissance artist provided some
means of access to the Virgin, but Giorgione’s Mary is
seated on a throne without visible steps. His heavenly
queen is, for all her gentle beauty, as remote as Cimabue’s
(see fig. 2.10), although in a different way, for her scale
within the pictorial space is delicate and her demeanor,

19.4. GIORGIONE. Enthroned Madonna with Sts. Liberalis and
Francis . c. 1500-5. Panel, 6 '65V' x 5' (2 x 1.5 m). i Cathedral,
Castelfranco. Commissioned by Tuzio Costanzo, perhaps to
commemorate the death of his son Matteo in 1504.

captured in downcast eyes, demure. Giorgione paid
homage to his teacher by repeating Giovanni Bellini’s
figure of St. Francis from the San Giobbe altarpiece (see
fig. 15.41) in reverse. But where most of Bellini’s large
altarpieces feature an architectural background that con-
tinues the forms of the painting’s three-dimensional frame,
behind Mary’s throne in the Castelfranco altarpiece our
gaze is allowed to move out over land and sea. There is a
port above St. Francis, while a village above St. Liberalis,
on the left, is protected by a tower. Both landscapes show
signs of warfare: two soldiers have stopped by a bend in
the road at the right, and at the left the guard tower is shat-
tered as if by artillery. These allusions, coupled with the
melancholic mood of the picture, suggest that the lofty
placing of the Virgin may be an appeal for her intercession
during a period of military occupation. The pyramidal
composition suggests a familiarity with the Florentine
High Renaissance, which Giorgione could have acquired
as a result of Fra Bartolommeo’s 1508 visit to Venice. But
within the pyramid, Giorgione manipulated a series of
diagonals: the slanting spear and the parallel motion of the
drapery over the Virgin’s right knee are answered by coun-
terdiagonals in the smaller folds of her mantle.

Giorgione’s Tempestuous Landscape with the Soldier
and the Gypsy (fig. 19.5) has been the subject of scholarly
controversy. Who is the nude woman? Why is she nursing
her child outdoors? Who is the soldier standing nearby?
Many efforts have been made to find a subject for the
painting in literature or the Bible; it has even been sug-
gested that the picture has no literary subject. In 1530,
twenty years after Giorgione’s death, the Venetian Mar-
cantonio Michiel saw the painting in the house of Gabriel
Vendramin and referred to it in his journal: “The little
landscape on canvas with the tempest, with the gypsy and
the soldier, was from the hand of Zorzi da Castelfranco.”
An X-ray reveals that Giorgione had originally painted a
nude woman bathing where the male figure with the lance
now stands — an alteration that suggests either a change in
the painting’s narrative or that there was no narrative. One
suggestion has been that the painting is a caprice — a paint-
ing of a mood — on Giorgione’s part. If this is the case, it
would be a remarkable development in the history of
Western art, although we should also remember that this is
a small painting made, most probably, for a private collec-
tor. If it marks a breakthrough in iconographic practice, it
would seem to be one that very few people knew about.

In the unkempt world of this landscape, the bushes are
shaggy, the columns ruined, and the bridge precarious. The
scene is threatened by a storm cloud that casts a shadow
on the bridge and by a bolt of lightning that illuminates the
scene with a sudden glare. A high level of humidity is sug-
gested, and there is a crackling tension in the air.

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59 3

19.5. GIORGIONE. Tempestuous Landscape with the Soldier and the Gypsy. 1505-10. Canvas, 32 1 U x 28 3 /4" (82 x 73 cm). Accademia, Venice.

One of Giorgione’s last paintings — or so we are led to
believe because it was finished by Titian, presumably after
Giorgione’s death — is the Sleeping Venus (fig. 19.6), the
first in a long series of recumbent female nudes in the
history of art. Far removed from Botticelli’s goddess (see
fig. 13.24), who stands nude at her birth but is about to be

covered, Giorgione’s Venus sleeps, and her nude body
echoes the curves of the earth. While the lower line of the
body is a single, flowing curve, the upper shape leads our
eye in a wavelike movement from her head across her
breast to the hand that covers her genitals — a gesture both
discreet and suggestive. The sensuous effect of the painting

5 94

THE CINQUECENTO

19.6. GIORGIONE (finished by Titian). Sleeping Venus, c. 1507-10. Canvas, 3'6 3 /4 M x 5'9" (1.1 x 1.75 m). Gemaldegalerie, Dresden.
Perhaps commissioned by Girolamo Marcello, who married in 1507.

is heightened by the warm tones and the naturalistic
texture of the goddess’s body, which is emphasized by the
fabrics on which she reclines. This must have been a
private painting; perhaps it was even kept covered with a
curtain, as we know was common with such paintings in
later centuries.

X-rays reveal a kneeling Cupid at Venus’s feet who was
overpainted after this area of the work was damaged. In
1525 the painting was described thus: “The canvas of the
nude Venus, sleeping in the countryside with Cupid, was
by Zorzi of Castelfranco, but the landscape and Cupid
were completed by Titian.” Technical analysis has revealed
that the fabric on which Venus sleeps was also reworked
by Titian. The face in its present state does not seem to fit
the style of either artist; perhaps it was repainted in
Dresden in 1843, when Titian’s Cupid was covered?

Another unconventional picture, the so-called Pastoral
Scene (fig. 19.7), has been attributed to both the last phase
of Giorgione’s art and the early stages of Titian’s. The
subject is probably an allegory of poetry. Two gentlemen,
one fashionably dressed and playing a lute, are seated on
the ground in conversation, paying no attention to two
nude women, suggesting that the latter are probably alle-
gorical. One of these women seems about to play a recorder

(an allegory of music?), while the other pours water back
into a well from a pitcher, a gesture that has resisted
convincing interpretation. The landscape lacks clear-cut
shapes or edges, form is lost in shadow, and there is almost
more shadow than light. The face of the young man on the
left, for instance, seems full of expression but is so deeply
shaded that we can see little more than the profile and the
position of one eyebrow. The man on the right turns toward
him. Their exchange is intimate but uncertain in nature.

The poetic mood of the painting is used by some critics
to support the attribution to Giorgione, while others argue
that the complex figural composition and the manner in
which the figures dominate the landscape are atypical of
Giorgione’s usual approach and the work should be cred-
ited to Titian. If the painting is by Giorgione, he had started
to paint with broader strokes and to endow his shadows
with a greater coloristic subtlety (the painting is covered
with layers of darkened varnish and as a result the colors
we see today are somewhat muted). Current scholarship
leans toward an attribution to Titian, but there will prob-
ably never be a definitive answer to the authorship of this
memorable painting, which documents the intersection
between the two artists who together revolutionized Venet-
ian painting at the beginning of the Cinquecento.

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19.7. GIORGIONE or TITIAN. Pastoral Scene , now known as the Concert Champetre . c. 1510. Canvas, 3'5 5 /i6" x 4'5 3 M"

(1.05 x 1.36 m). The Louvre, Paris.

Our illustration shows the composition without later additions. This combination of nude women with men dressed in contemporary
clothes inspired Edouard Manet’s notorious Dejeuner sur I’herbe of 1863.

Titian

Tiziano Vecellio, known in English as Titian, was born in
Cadore, north of Venice at the base of the spectacular
mountain range known as the Dolomites. The tradition
that he was born about 1477 was based on Titian’s own
statement in a 1571 letter to King Philip II of Spain that he
was ninety-five years old. Since Titian was asking the king
to pay him for works he had already received, the artist
may have exaggerated his age. When Vasari visited Titian
in 1566, he recorded Titian’s age as seventy-six, which
would place the date of his birth in 1489 or 1490. No inde-
pendent artistic activity on Titian’s part is recorded before
1508 when, barely twenty years old according to his friend
Ludovico Dolce, he assisted Giorgione in painting frescoes
on the exterior of the German commercial headquarters in

Venice. No securely dated works by him before 1511
survive, and contemporary sources describe him as still
young when, in 1516-18, he painted the Assumption of
the Virgin (see fig. 19.10). The most probable date for his
birth is about 1488. His documented career, then, spans
sixty-eight years, until his death in 1576.

During this career Titian made one of the crucial dis-
coveries in the history of Western painting: he was the first
painter in modern times to free the brush from the task of
exactly describing tactile surfaces, volumes, and details,
and to convert it into a vehicle for the direct perception of
light through color. This new technique also enhanced
movement and supported the expression of strong
emotion. Other artists had taken tentative steps in this
direction, but it was Titian who boldly transformed the art
of painting in this manner. In a painting as early as the

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Assumption of the Virgin , he demonstrated his knowledge
and mastery of this new type of brushwork, but restricted
its use to areas relatively remote from the observer (see fig.
19.11). Long before the end of his life he was painting
entire pictures by this method, as were many other painters
in Venice. The raised brushstrokes created by the use of
thick paint are known as impasti.

Brushwork, however, was only one aspect of Titian’s
style. The painter Palma Giovane tells us that Titian built
up his pictures in oil over a reddish ground to establish a
warm base for all the colors, and that in his later years he
would turn his paintings face to the wall for months and
then study them anew as if they were his worst enemies.
New layers of paint might then be applied, especially
glazes (the Italian word velatura , or veiling, expresses well
the role these glazes play), which toned down colors that
might stand out too much and created a unity among
colors, shadows, and highlights. “Trenta, quaranta vela-
ture!” (“Thirty, forty glazes!”) he is said to have cried, and
possibly there are so many, except where zealous restorers
have cleaned them off, stripping Titian’s paintings down to
the strong colors he had muted and united. Palma stated
that in one particular late work Titian “painted more with
his fingers than with his brushes.”

Ludovico Dolce, who knew Titian well, wrote that
the artist arrived in Venice at the age of eight with his
older brother and was set to work with a mosaicist named
Zuccato. Dissatisfied, he was taken on by Gentile and
then Giovanni Bellini. He did not stay there long, but
moved on to study with Giorgione. By 1510 he seems to
have become independent. The young man was also a
shrewd businessman who invested his earnings, and by
1531 he was able to buy a palatial residence in Venice,
looking out across the lagoons and, on clear days, to the
slopes of the Dolomites where he had been born. In 1533,
already wealthy and famous, Titian was summoned to
Bologna to meet the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, who
made him a count and his children hereditary nobles. In
1545 and 1546 he was in Rome, where he was awarded
Roman citizenship on the Capitoline Hill. Twice the
emperor called him to Augsburg as court painter. There is
even a famous tale that one day, when Charles V was visit-
ing his studio, Titian chanced to drop his brush and the
emperor stooped to pick it up. Whether true or not, the
story conveys the contemporary notion that an artist like
Titian deserved respect and consideration even from the
highest nobility.

From the start of his career, Titian showed his impa-
tience with tradition. Every motif, every convention had to
be seen afresh. In his early Madonna and Child (fig. 19.8),
nicknamed the Gypsy Madonna because of Mary’s unusu-
ally dark hair and eyes, he takes a standard Bellini

19.8. TITIAN. Madonna and Child, known popularly since
the nineteenth century as the Gypsy Madonna, c. 1511. Panel.

25 7 /8 x 32 7 /8" (65.8 x 83.5 cm). Kunsthistorisches Museum, A lenna.
X-rays indicate that Titian made the figures more massive as he
worked on the painting and that he changed the position of the
Christ Child’s head; originally he looked off to the right.

composition — the parapet, standing child, and centralized
cloth-of-honor placed behind the Virgin — and pushes them
all off center. The Virgin stands slightly to the right of
center, but she overlaps only one edge of the cloth-of-
honor, which has been moved to leave a single landscape
view instead of the customary two. The parapet runs less
than halfway across the lower edge, and the disjunction
between parapet and cloth-of-honor leads our eye upward
in a slight diagonal over a second parapet to the hills and
mountains of the background. Throughout Titian’s career,
he used diagonal placings and views with increasing inten-
sity to break the traditional symmetry of Renaissance pic-
tures. Another of Titian’s lifelong compositional principles
is already visible in the Gypsy Madonna : the Virgin forms
an equilateral triangle. The triangle and the diagonal are
for Titian’s art what the spiral is for Raphael and the block
for Michelangelo.

In the Gypsy Madonna , the sweetness of Bellini’s
Madonnas is replaced by a sturdy naturalism. The sun
shines full on her face, with its large, wide-set eyes, and a
half-shadow lingers on her neck. Her cheeks and lips glow
in the sea light characteristic of Venice, where light is so
often reflected from below. Both the Virgin’s three-
dimensionality and her quiet grace are impressive, and her
child is a sturdy boy.

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19.9. TITIAN. Portrait of a Bearded Man (Self-Portrait?), c. 1512.
Canvas, 32 x 26" (81.2 x 66 cm). National Gallery, London.

The initials T. V. on the parapet are thought to be the signature
of Titian, whose Italian name was Tiziano Vecellio. Some have
identified this as a self-portrait, others with the portrait Titian
painted of a member of the Barbarigo family, which was described by
Vasari as “very beautiful since the flesh seemed true and natural, the
hairs so precisely drawn you could count them, as you could the
stitches on the silvery satin jacket worn by the figure.”

Some have argued that Titian’s Portrait of a Bearded
Man (fig. 19.9) is a self-portrait. By resting the man’s
elbow on the parapet so that the sleeve overlaps the edge,
Titian brings the sitter into our space and there is an imme-
diate sense of familiarity — something not every patron
would appreciate. The life-sized figure, the unified compo-
sition, and the simplified brushwork — which on close
inspection emphasizes breadth rather than detail — create a
figure that is also convincing from a distance. If this is a
self-portrait, is it too far-fetched to suggest that it might
have been a trompe I’oeil demonstration, placed in a
window to momentarily deceive a passerby? Although the
body is almost at right angles to the picture plane, the head
turns and the eyes calmly engage us. The broad, spiral
motion of arm and head suggests that Titian already knew
something about what was going on in Florence, but he
handled the pose in his own way. The manner in which the
hand suddenly turns out of sight, into shadow, is unex-
pected and un-Florentine. The light illuminates the near
side of the face, emphasizing the cheek, forehead, and
strong, straight nose, so that the face holds our interest
despite the complex blue-violet sleeve.

Titian’s Assumption of the Virgin (figs. 19.10-19.11) is
over 20 feet high, but it seems even larger because of his
treatment of the figures, who are heroic in both proportion
and deportment. This grand picture competes successfully
with the vast Gothic interior of the church of Santa Maria
Gloriosa dei Frari (see figs. 5.15-5.16), on whose high
altar it still stands. There may or may not be some rela-
tionship to Raphael’s Sistine Madonna (see fig. 17.53);
Titian did not visit Florence and Rome until 1545, but
some notion of the grandeur and scale of the central Italian
High Renaissance could have been brought to Venice by
Fra Bartolommeo and others. In addition, it is possible
that Titian came to know certain aspects of the style
through drawings or the many prints that were made after
the compositions of Raphael and others.

Titian imagined the moment of the Assumption — the
physical ascent into heaven of the Virgin’s body miracu-
lously reunited with her soul after burial — as a scene of
cosmic jubilation. The foreground is filled with sturdy

apostles who gesticulate wildly. Their movements converge
to form a triangle and the Virgin ascends from its apex on
a curving cloud populated by putti. These robust children
sail upward with Mary into the golden light. In the midst
of this throng, the dramatically twisting Mary surges
upward as her mantle billows about her, creating more
diagonals and triangles. Even God the Father floats diago-
nally toward us in space (fig. 19.11). Mary’s entire being
seems to be yearning for this heavenly ascent.

To anyone who has seen the painting in situ the color is
unforgettable. Perhaps the necessity for broad effects that
would be visible from a distance persuaded Titian to
restrict himself to a few dominant hues — reds, blues, and
greens in the garments of the apostles and the traditional
blue and red for Mary’s mantle and tunic, set off against
a limpid blue sky below and the golden glow of heaven
above. The result is a composition of grand simplicity;
one might describe it as a symphonic structure composed
in massive chords that reach the observer immediatelv
and directly.

Before we leave the Assumption , it is worth pausing to
read what Titian’s contemporary Ludovico Dolce wrote
about the picture and its first reception in Venice:

Here Titian, a young man even now, painted in oils the Virgin
ascending to heaven.... And certainly the grandness and awe-
someness of Michelangelo, the charm and loveliness of
Raphael, and the coloring proper to nature are incorporated
into this painting. It was, nevertheless, the first public com-
mission that Titian carried out in oils; and he did it in the
shortest space of time, and in his youth. All of which meant
that the clumsy artists and dimwit masses, who had seen up
till then nothing but the dead and cold creations of Giovanni
Bellini, Gentile, and Vivarino (the fact being that Giorgione
had not yet received a public commission for a work in oils,’
and that his creations were mostly limited to half-figures
and portraits) — works that had no movement and no projec-
tion — grossly maligned this same picture. Later the envy
cooled off, and the truth, little by little, opened people’s eyes,
so that they began to marvel at the new style opened up by
Titian in Venice.... And certainly one can speak of a miracle
at work in the fact that, without as yet having seen the antiq-
uities of Rome, which were a source of enlightenment to all
excellent painters, and purely by dint of that little tiny spark
which he had uncovered in the works of Giorgione, Titian
discerned and apprehended the essence of perfect painting.

Probably a year or so before the Assumption , Titian
completed the painting known as Sacred and Profane Love
(fig. 19.12). The exact subject of this compelling painting
has been difficult to unravel, and the following summary
combines elements drawn from several interpretations.

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Opposite: 19.10. TITIAN. Assumption of the Virgin. 1516-18.
Panel, 22'6" x 11 ’10" (6.9 x 3.6 m). it Sta. Maria Gloriosa dei
Fran, Venice. Commissioned by Germano da Caiole, the abbot of
the monastery of the Frari. (For a view of the painting in situ in the
church, see fig. 5.15).

The marble frame is original, and was also commissioned by Caiole.
The work is signed on the Virgin’s sarcophagus, with letters that
seem to be carved into the stone.

Two women, so similar in form and coloring that they look
like sisters, sit on a fountain in the late afternoon. One is
clothed in white, girdled with a locked belt, wearing
gloves, and holding a closed jar. She is seen against a forti-
fied hill town to which a huntsman returns, while in the
countryside two rabbits, symbols of love, establish a mood
of quiet peace. As she looks past us, apparently listening,
she toys with a cut rose. The other figure is nude except for
a white scarf and a rose-colored cloak that flies out as if
she has just arrived. She holds aloft an urn from which a
flame rises. Behind her stretches an open and luminous
landscape with a lake, in which huntsmen catch up with a
rabbit, shepherds tend their flocks, and a church steeple
rises above the horizon. The fountain has the shape of a
sarcophagus, and its lid is thrust aside so that Cupid may
stir its waters. A golden bowl half filled with clear water
rests upon the edge. A relief panel on the front of the foun-
tain shows the arms of Niccolo Aurelio, vice-chancellor of
the Venetian Republic, with, to the left, a horse led by its
mane by a groom while others flee, and, to the right, a man

19.11. Head of God the Father, detail of fig. 19.10.

being beaten and a woman being led by her hair. While
the meaning of several details remains obscure or debat-
able, it seems evident that this is a picture about love and,
perhaps, marriage; the style allows a dating in the 1510s,
and Aurelio’s marriage in 1514 suggests a plausible con-
nection. The woman dressed in white could represent an
idealized bride, while the nude female, who is in the
company of winged Cupid, is almost certainly Venus.
Perhaps Venus has arrived to advise the seated woman on

19.12. TITIAN. Sacred and Profane Love . 1514. Canvas, 3 1 1 1 " x 9'2' 1 (1.2 x 2.8 m). Borghese Gallery, Rome. Probably commissioned by
Niccolo Aurelio in celebration of his wedding to Laura Bagarotto in 1514. For a detail, see p. 441.

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some affair of the heart. The traditional title should prob-
ably be discarded, but the iconography is so unparalleled
that it is difficult to know what to put in its place. Titian
composed this vision in terms of his characteristic triangles
in a simple harmony based on whites and silver-grays,
blues, roses, and deep greens that already show the
warmth and depth of his glazing technique.

The Renaissance interest in ancient mythological themes
can be seen in a series of three pictures Titian painted for
Alfonso cTEste, duke of Ferrara. Two of these follow
descriptions by the third-century Roman author Philostra-
tus of pictures he had seen in a villa near Naples that rep-
resented the Festival of Venus and the Bacchanal of the
Andrians (fig. 19.13). In Titian’s version, set on the island
of Andros, where a river of wine gushes from the ground,
the inhabitants, inflamed with wine and love, dance,

gather in couples, or sleep, like the nude Ariadne in the
lower right corner. One little boy unashamedly urinates,
while at the top of the hill the god of the river of wine lies
in drunken sleep in a shaft of sunlight.

The subject of Bacchus and Ariadne (fig. 19.14) in the
same series is drawn from a variety of classical sources in
a synthesis perhaps suggested by the poet Ariosto. It shows
Bacchus leaping from his chariot to rescue Ariadne, who
had been abandoned on the island of Naxos by Theseus.
The god is attended by drunken maenads clashing cymbals
and by satyrs brandishing sticks and the hindquarter of a
goat torn apart for their feast. The male figure struggling
with snakes was inspired by the Laocoon group,
discovered in Rome less than two decades earlier and
known to Titian through either a small version or a print
(see fig. 17.3).

19.13. TITIAN. Bacchanal of the Andrians, c. 1522-24. Canvas, 5'9" x 6'4" (1.75 x 1.93 m). Prado, Madrid. Commissioned by Alfonso d’Este
for his studiolo , the Camerino d’Alab astro, in the castle at Ferrara.

This was not the first work Alfonso commissioned from Titian, for in 1516 he had requested a painting (now lost) of the Tribute Money for
the door of a cabinet — a reminder that Renaissance artists were often engaged by patrons to produce small, functional works. The musical
composition seen in the foreground of the Bacchanal is identifiable as a song for four voices attributed to Adrian Willaert, a favorite composer of
the patron. The text in translation reads “He who drinks and does not drink again, does not know what drinking is.” Titian’s signature is placed
suggestively on a piece of paper slipped into the bodice of the woman in red reclining in the central foreground.

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19.14. TITIAN. Bacchus and Ariadne. 1522-23. Canvas, 5'9" x 6'3" (1.75 x 1.91 m). National Gallery, London. Commissioned by Alfonso
d’Este for his studio lo in the castle at Ferrara.

Titian here faithfully followed descriptions written by the ancient authors Catullus and Ovid. Fie came to Ferrara to install the painting in
February of 1523. It is signed on the amphora in the lower left foreground. The presence of prominent signatures on all three of the paintings
for Alfonso d’Este reveals Titian’s status at this time.

In these paintings Titian reached a new freedom of
figural composition and brilliance of coloristic expression.
The rich flesh tones and the vivacious blues and roses were
clearly designed to stand out against the alabaster archi-
tecture of the setting. But the eloquence of color in the
shadows is almost more surprising than its vibrancy in
the light. Note the sheen of the crystal pitcher against the
cloud or the glow of the leopards’ coats where they are cast
into shadow by the leaping Bacchus.

Meanwhile, in an important religious work, Titian
broke decisively with tradition. The Madonna of the
Pesaro Family (figs. 19.15-19.16) was commissioned for a
side aisle altar in Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari. The scene
is set outdoors, but with the portico of what must be
intended to represent the Virgin’s heavenly palace as the
setting. An armored warrior holding an olive-crowned flag
with the arms of the Pesaro family presents St. Peter, in the

middle, with a captured Turk. This is a reference to the
Battle of Santa Maura, which was won in 1502 by Jacopo
Pesaro, bishop of Paphos and commander of the papal
galleys. Jacopo himself kneels at the left, accompanied by
the turbaned Turkish prisoner, while at the right kneel five
male members of his family.

Titian’s break with tradition is seen in the composition.
An artist in the conservative Venetian tradition would have
given us a symmetrical arrangement, but Titian deployed
diagonals and triangles in depth and height. After turning
the palace at a sharp angle to the picture plane, Titian set
the Virgin so far to one side that her head forms one corner
of a triangle of which the other two points are provided by
the kneeling chiefs of the Pesaro clan. Similar triangles in
smaller scale reappear throughout in figures and drapery
patterns. The off-center composition created by Titian’s
experimentation with the illusionistic architecture as he

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painted relates the painting to its original setting, in the left
side aisle of the church (see fig. 5.16). The columns, which
seem to be inspired by the piers of the Gothic church of the
Frari (see fig. 5.15), soar beyond the arched frame, and at
the top a cloud floats in, bearing putti holding a cross. The
result is noble and dramatic. Titian’s pictures of the 1520s
have all the harmony of the High Renaissance, but with
the power of dynamic compositional patterns and shapes
rather than muscular action. Now Titian’s color has
quieted down somewhat; the Pesaro Madonna is darker
and richer than the work of the preceding decade, softened
by his application of multiple glazes.

When Titian took up the subject of the Entombment
(fig. 19.17) in the mid-1520s, he did so in a measured and
controlled fashion. The pose of Christ is borrowed from
that of the dead Meleager carried from the boar hunt in
Roman sarcophagus reliefs — a motif also appropriated by
Raphael for the same subject. Titian fitted his central

19.15. TITIAN. Madonna of the Pesaro Family.
1519-26. Canvas, 16’ x 8'10" (4.9 x 2.7 m). m Sta.
Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, Venice. Commissioned by
Jacopo Pesaro, bishop of Paphos, and his brothers.
X-rays reveal that Titian changed the architectural
setting three times in the course of executing this
painting. The earliest version featured an apse, while
the second had columns like those in the final painting,
but much smaller in scale. The frame is original.

19.16. Photograph of TITIAN. Madonna of the
Pesaro Family in situ in Sta. Maria Gloriosa dei
Frari, Venice.

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19.17. TITIAN. Entombment. Mid-1520s(?). Canvas, original
size 4' 2" x 6'7" (1.27 x 2.10 m), now 3'6" x 7' (1.06 x 2.13 m).

The Louvre, Paris. Probably commissioned by a member of the
Gonzaga family.

This painting was later truncated by approximately 8 inches
(20.3 cm) on the sides and enlarged with strips of canvas across
the top and bottom that added approximately 5 inches (12.7 cm)
to the height. We have adjusted our image so that it reflects
Titian’s original intentions.

group — Christ, Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, and
John — into a triangular composition enriched by numer-
ous curving shapes. Within the composition the figures
exchange glances of tragic intensity.

Titian’s portraiture in the 1520s displays dignity and
reserve. No expression crosses the face of the Man with the
Glove (fig. 19.18), and the triangular relationship of hands
and face functions within a color scheme restricted to
black, white, and flesh tones. Titian’s mastery as a por-
traitist is felt in the solemn gaze, the luminous eyes, the
naturalism of the face, and the informal pose, all of which
give the portrait a strong sense of individual character.
Challenged by the limited color palette, Titian countered
the effect of living, warm flesh with the black and white of
the clothing and the beige of the torn glove, which gives
the painting its modern name.

19.18. TITIAN. Man with the Glove, c. 1520-21(?). Canvas,
39 3 /8 x 35" (100 x 88.9 cm). The Louvre, Paris. Titian’s signature
is represented as if carved into the stone block on the right.

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19.19. TITIAN. "Venus ofUrbino Finished 1538. Canvas, 3 'll" x 5'5" (1.19 x 1.65 m). Uffizi Gallery, Florence. Commissioned by
Guidobaldo II della Rovere, duke of Camerino, later duke of Urbino.

Conservation of the painting has disclosed that it was damaged when the canvas it was painted on was attached to a new backing using a hot
iron; as a result, Titian’s raised impasto brushwork was flattened.

Titian’s so-called Venus of Urbino (fig. 19.19) was fin-
ished in 1538 for Guidobaldo II della Rovere. In this, the
earliest in a long series of recumbent Venuses in Titian’s
work, he returned with such fidelity to the pose of Gior-
gione’s Venus (see fig. 19.6) that one suspects the patron
may have requested it. But now the nude figure is awake
and looking directly at us. She is inside, lying upon a couch
or bed with her dog asleep at her feet. One hand idly holds
flowers, and her silky, golden-brown hair floods over her
shoulders in a contrast of textures and colors that Titian
used and reused throughout his long career. Titian divided
his background between the delimited area in which the
nude reclines and an adjoining chamber, paved with
marble, hung with brocades, and lit by an opening onto
treetops. In this palatial environment, a splendidly dressed
woman looks on while a girl in white searches for some-
thing in one of a pair of carved and gilded cassoni — the

chests in which clothes were kept in the Renaissance. Is
this really a representation of Venus? The patron’s corre-
spondence, which betrays his impatience to receive the
picture, refers to the subject as “the nude woman.” Only
her connection with Giorgione’s earlier and Titian’s later
Venuses suggests otherwise. If this is Venus, then Titian
went to considerable pains to demythologize her, repre-
senting her as a Renaissance prince’s lover idly reclining
while her lady-in-waiting and maidservant find a garment
splendid enough to clothe her. This unprecedented inter-
pretation of the female nude must surely have been shock-
ing to some when it was painted, especially in this period
when a woman’s behavior was controlled by strict social
mores, if it represented not Venus but a particular woman
or even an ideal example of female beauty. An analysis of
the painting within the context of Renaissance attitudes
and practices by scholar Rona Goffin emphasizes that

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female masturbation was approved by theologians because
it was believed to encourage not just fertility but the
chance of conceiving a male. Goffin suggests that this is
what Titian represented here. Whether the patron or the
artist intended such an interpretation as a part of this
revolutionary painting is impossible to determine. Cer-
tainly Titian’s image, created as it was for a particular
patron, must be related to changing Renaissance attitudes
toward the body and the role of sexual activity in societal
and personal behavior; exactly how remains uncertain.

Titian painted an uninterrupted sequence of dramatic
works from the early 1540s until he was stopped by death.
In 1542 he accepted a commission, offered originally to
Vasari when he visited Venice, for three scenes of violent
action for the ceiling of the church of Santo Spirito in Isola.
The subjects, Cain Killing Abel, the Sacrifice of Isaac, and
David and Goliath (fig. 19.20), prefigure Christ’s sacrifice.
Here Titian, who still had not visited Rome, showed for
the first time a sustained interest in the heroic poses and
powerful musculature of the Roman High Renaissance. In
the heavily muscled figures, who seem almost to fall out of
the confines of the paintings, there is an echo of Giulio
Romano’s giants (see fig. 18.65), while the influence of
ancient sculptures has also played a role.

Among the earliest in a series of portraits in the new,
emotionally charged style is Pope Paul III Farnese (fig.
19.21), which Titian was commissioned to paint when the
pope visited Bologna in 1543. This unwilling supporter of
the Counter-Reformation was at heart a Renaissance
prince, and he is shown in a restless pose, twisted in his
chair, one hand on his purse, his head jutting forward, his
gaze moving in our direction. The characterization of the
face and the powerful treatment of the features, hands,
hair, and beard are combined with an electrifying display
of reds and flashes of light on the velvet papal mozzetta
that he is wearing. Titian beat these strokes onto the
canvas with a broad, heavy brush. His highlights crackle
with a new freedom, living a life of their own in a manner
that helps convey the character of the painting’s subject.

As Titian’s life work culminated in a final quarter
century of activity, his new freedom of light and

19.20. TITIAN. David and Goliath . 1542. Canvas, 9'2’' (2.8 m)
square. Sacristy of Sta. Maria della Salute, Venice. Commissioned for
Sto. Spirito in Isola, Venice.

19.21. TITIAN. Pope Paul III Farnese. 1543. Canvas, 45 x 35"

(114 x 89 cm). Museo di Capodimonte, Naples. Commissioned by
Pope Paul HI (see figs. 18.57-18.59).

It is always difficult to determine the length of time it took to
produce a work of art, in part because the artist was probably
executing several other works at the same time. However, documents
indicate that in 1531 Titian completed a half-length figure of a saint
in a month. This portrait may have taken a similar length of time.

19.22. TITIAN. Danae . 1552-53(?). Canvas,
4'2V4" x 5 TO" (1.28 x 1.78 m). Prado, Madrid.
Commissioned by Philip II of Spain.

This is a variation of a composition originally
created in 1545-46 for Cardinal Alessandro
Farnese, grandson of Pope Paul III, and now in
the Gallerie Nazionali di Capodimonte, Naples.

brushwork increased, often at the expense of solid form.
Tactile reality is softened and dissolved or even shattered
by bursts of brushwork that seem to be recording luminary
visions. Generally, these are connected with erotic imagery
or scenes of religious experience. For example, Titian
repeated three times his composition showing the mortal
woman Danae seduced by Jupiter, who descended upon
her as a shower of golden coins. For the figure of Danae,
Titian utilized a pose from Michelangelo, who had in turn
derived it from an ancient Roman relief and used it for a
picture of Leda — a woman also seduced by Jupiter but in
the form of a swan — and for the Night (see fig. 18.5) of the
Medici Chapel. Titian’s languid Danae, however, has none
of the muscular tension that we sense in Michelangelo’s
figure. In the version of Danae painted for King Philip II of
Spain (fig. 19.22), Titian included a greedy maidservant
stretching out her apron to try to catch some of the coins.
Her rough features and crude avarice contrast with the
beauty and rapture of Danae; one woman looks for mate-
rial gain, the other accepts a love that is divine in origin
and expressed in light. The loose brushwork of Titian’s late
style emphasizes the warmth of Danae’s body, the reflec-
tions of light on the folds of drapery, and the glorious burst
of golden, copper, silver, and turquoise rays flooding from
the cloud. Titian called his paintings of mythological sub-
jects poesie (loosely, “poetries”), but whether he invented
the term is uncertain.

When Vasari and Michelangelo visited Titian’s studio in
the Belvedere Palace in Rome, they saw the Venetian
painter’s first version of this subject, painted for Cardinal
Alessandro Farnese. Vasari wrote that he and Michelan-
gelo “praised it, as one does in the presence of the painter.

After [we] had left, in discussing Titian’s method,
Michelangelo added that his while color [colorito\ and his
style much pleased him, it was a pity that Venetian painters
did not learn to draw well from the beginning, and that
they did not pursue a better method in their studies. ‘For,’
he said, Tf Titian had been in any way assisted by art and
design [disegno], as he is by nature, and above all in coun-
terfeiting life, no one could do better work, for he has a
fine spirit and a beautiful and lively manner.’” Whether
Michelangelo actually said this is uncertain. Such com-
ments attributed to him play a role in Vasari’s assertion
that the stress on drawing ( disegno ) in Florentine art was
superior to the emphasis the Venetian painters placed on
color (colore) in evolving their compositions.

Titian’s huge altarpiece of the Martyrdom of St.
Lawrence (fig. 19.23) represents the Early Christian saint

19.23. TITIAN. Martyrdom of St. Lawrence . c. 1548-57.

Canvas, 16'5" x 9'2" (5 x 2.8 m). 1 Chiesa dei Gesuiti, Venice.
Commissioned by Lorenzo Massolo for his tomb chapel in Sta.

Maria dei Crociferi, Venice.

Renaissance artists did not hesitate to replicate their works if
commissioned to do so, and in 1564-67 Titian produced a variation
of this altarpiece for King Philip II of Spain that is now in the Escorial
near Madrid. When Vasari visited Titian’s studio he saw the version
being painted for Philip and praised it as “executed with admirable
skill, ingenuity, and good judgment.”

Many of Titian’s works, including this one, were known throughout
Europe as a result of prints made by the Netherlandish artist Cornelis
Cort, who in 1565 reached an agreement with Titian to reproduce
his works. The frame is original.

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being burned on a grill after he refused to make a sacrifice
to the ancient Roman gods. Titian set the scene at night,
contrasting the warm embers of the flames below with the
white light of heaven that breaks through the clouds above
and toward which Lawrence reaches. The saint’s tormen-
tors, whose armor catches the glints of the flames and
torches, blow on the fire and force Lawrence back down
on the grill with a giant pitchfork. Titian represented the
saint dramatically foreshortened in the illusionistic space,
at a rising angle that contrasts with the downward slope of
the buildings to the right. The composition is closed on the
left by an impassive ancient idol seen from below. These
forceful angles of vision, the strong movement of the saint

and his tormentors, and the crackling flames and diagonal
torches draw the spectator into a confrontation between
torture and redemption that cannot be ignored. With half
the surface painted black, this image is the most evocative
night scene since Raphael’s Liberation of St. Peter from
Prison (see fig. 17.51), and, like that work, must have
played a role in inspiring the nocturnal visions of later
Baroque painters.

A completely different mood is captured in the Rape of
Europa (fig. 19.24), another of Titian’s poesie . The nymph
Europa had been walking along the seashore with com-
panions when Jupiter appeared as a white bull. Europa
innocently wove garlands of flowers for the bull, but he

19.24. TITIAN. Rape of Europa. 1559-62. Canvas, 6T" x 6'9" (1.85 x 2.05 m). Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston. Commissioned by
Philip II of Spain.Twelve years after this painting arrived in Spain, Titian was still waiting to be paid by the king.

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suddenly swept her off across the waters, leaving her
alarmed companions on the shore. Europa clings to one of
the bull’s horns and tries to maintain her balance. The
bull’s speed lifts her garment to expose her legs and carries
her rose-colored mantle upward. The picture’s direction
from left to right is accelerated by cupids, who ride on a
fish or frolic in the air. Titian expressed the departure from
earth, exaggerating the distance between foreground and
background, diminishing the figures and mountains to tiny
proportions. In the landscape, Titian’s flashing brushwork
suggests mountains, sea, clouds, and sky through fluctua-
tions of blue, silver, and apricot. Chords of deeper blue and
silver create the water, and the foam around the bull’s
forelegs parts to reveal a large, spiny fish. Blue and silver
highlights enliven the bull’s shaggy coat and Europa’s filmy
garments, and a single bold stroke of white paint creates
the erotic glint in the eye of the bull.

When Vasari visited Titian’s studio in 1566, he recog-
nized how the artist’s style had changed:

His method of painting in these late works is very different
from the technique he had used as a young man. For the early
works are executed with a certain finesse and an incredible
diligence, so that they can be seen from close to as well as
from a distance; while these last pictures are executed with
broad and bold strokes and smudges, so that from nearby
nothing can be seen whereas from a distance they are
perfect.... This method of painting has caused many artists,
who have wished to imitate him and thus display their skill,
to produce clumsy pictures. For although many people have
thought that they are painted without effort, this is not the
case.... [This style of painting] makes the pictures appear
alive and painted with great art, concealing the labor.

In the last decades of Titian’s life, he developed a new
type of action portrait, as seen in his image of the scholar,
architect, artist, collector, and art dealer Jacopo Strada (fig.
19.25). To indicate his profession, Strada holds a marble
statuette of Venus, while ancient coins, a fragmentary

19.25. TITIAN. Jacopo Strada . 1567-68. Canvas,

49 x 37V2 m (124 x 95 cm). Kunsthistorisches Museum,
Vienna. Probably commissioned by Jacopo Strada. The
portrait was painted in Venice, when Strada, an Italian
living and working in Vienna, was there purchasing
works for Albrecht V of Bavaria. The letter on the table
is addressed to Titian in Venice and perhaps functioned
as a kind of signature.

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6 I I

torso, and a bronze figurine lie on the table. Strada’s
success is shown by his rich costume, fur cape, and massive
gold chain with medallion, his gentlemanly status by the
sword and dagger, and his scholarship by the books
(Strada had a library of over 3,000 volumes). The diago-
nals of arms, marble statuette, and sidelong glance give to
the customary sixteenth-century portrait-with-attributes
the excitement of a dramatic moment. This apotheosis of
commerce could almost be mistaken for a detail from a
larger, narrative picture. Finished as far as the aged Titian
ever finished anything, Jacopo Strada presents a controlled
version of his rich brushwork and luminous glazes.

In his old age, Titian turned toward religious subjects,
especially the Passion of Christ. Contemplating the
approach of his own death, he seems to have meditated on
Christ’s suffering in pictures for which no patron is known.
In the 1540s Titian had painted the Crowning with Thorns
(not illustrated here) in a vigorous, physical style similar to
that of the ceiling at Santa Maria della Salute (see fig.
19.20). He took up this subject again about 1570 in a
picture, perhaps unfinished, found in his studio after his
death (fig. 19.26). In this later picture, the violence is com-
municated by color and brushwork, not muscular activity.
The figures seem to be virtually weightless. The drama of
shadow and light acquires its ferocity through the vibrancy
of the brushwork and what might be called the slow burn
of the coloring. Impasti rain upon the canvas. The compo-
sitional triangles clash and interlock, increasing the storm
of pain that surrounds the suffering Christ.

The frequent motifs of torment and chaos that recur in
Titian’s last years are resolved in the Piet a (fig. 19.27). We
are drawn into the painting by the Magdalen, who rushes
toward us, hair streaming, arm outstretched, her mouth
open in a cry of grief. In a heavily rusticated niche, Mary
holds the dead Christ. Statues of Moses and the Helle-
spontine Sibyl stand on bases formed by snarling lions’
heads, probably a reference to the Venetian lion, symbol
of St. Mark. Moses carries the tablets with the Ten Com-
mandments and the rod with which he struck water from
the rock. The figure of St. Jerome, who kneels humbly
before Christ, touching his hand and looking up into his
face, bears the features of the aged painter. Perhaps Titian
depicted himself in this guise because Jerome translated the
Bible from Hebrew and Greek into Latin, while, as a
painter, Titian is translating Jerome’s words into visual
form. The motif of the rushing Magdalen is repeated, diag-
onally, in the position of a soaring putto who carries an
immense torch. Below the statue of Moses, another putto
holds the Magdalen’s jar of ointment, and below the sibyl
a votive picture leaning against the pedestal shows Titian
and his son Orazio in prayer before the Pieta, asking for
deliverance from the plague.

19.26. TITIAN. Crowning with Thoms, c. 1570.

Canvas, 9'2" x 5 TIV 2 " (2.8 x 1.8 m). Alte Pinakothek, Munich.

This painting was acquired by Domenico Tintoretto, son of Titian’s
rival, the painter Jacopo Tintoretto. Vasari wrote that Titian’s method
of retouching and repainting of his works “is judicious, beautiful,
and magnificent, because the pictures seem to come alive....”

The Pieta was painted by Titian for his tomb in Santa
Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, the church that contained two of
his masterpieces. Within the niche above Christ, a golden
apse mosaic appears as a reminder, in Titian’s own memo-
rial, of his place in a Venetian tradition that encompasses
both the mosaic domes and apses of San Marco and the
illusionistic ones that appear in the paintings of his teacher,
Giovanni Bellini, and others (see figs. 15.41-15.42). Shim-
mering in the luminous glow, we can make out a pelican
striking her breast — a traditional symbol of the blood
Christ shed for humanity.

Titian was unable to complete the Pieta , for both he and
Orazio died in the plague of 1576. It was finished, in a
manner of speaking, by his assistant Palma Giovane, but it

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19.27. TITIAN (finished by PALMA GIOVANE).
Pieta. c. 1576. Canvas, 11'6" x 12’9 M (3.5 x 3.9
cm). Accademia, Venice.

This work was begun by Titian for his own tomb
in Sta. Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, Venice. Palma
inscribed the work: "What Titian had left
unfinished, Palma respectfully completed, and
dedicated the work to God.” The surface on which
Titian painted this large painting was made of seven
canvases different in type and weave; X-ray
examination has revealed that one canvas had a
head, perhaps a self-portrait, already painted on it.

It seems that, for a work such as this, which Titian
was creating for himself, he recycled fragments of
canvas that he had available.

is not easy to discover just what Palma did. The broken
brushwork seems to be Titian’s, and the painting contains
glorious passages, especially in the green tunic of the Mag-
dalen and the masses of her light-brown hair. Echoes of
Titian’s intended form seem to vibrate about the faces of
Christ and the Virgin, while a glowing light surrounds the
thorn-crowned head, and the closed eyes are barely indi-
cated. The tremulous disorder of this surface is locked into
the massive triangles of the composition, crossing in depth
as they emanate from or converge upon Christ and Mary.
The hypotenuse of Titian’s last triangle, by his own careful
design, is formed by his own body and by the direction of
his gaze as, in the semblance of St. Jerome, he concentrates
all his being on that of Christ.

Lorenzo Lotto

A strikingly original and almost equally long-lived con-
temporary of Titian was the somewhat older Lorenzo
Lotto (c. 1480/82-1556), who spent most of his active
years far from Venice. Most of Lotto’s works were pro-
duced for centers on the Venetian mainland and in what is
now Lombardy and the Marches. Only relatively late in
life did he settle in Venice, and even then he maintained his
ties with the mainland. Throughout his career Lotto

retained his individuality, and his personal inventions run
from examples of extreme naturalism through an interest
in the bizarre, as we shall see. Consistent throughout his
work is a preoccupation with unusual combinations of
color, which Lotto used to entrance his viewer and, on
occasion, to enhance the expressiveness of his subject.

In Lotto’s Annunciation (fig. 19.1), we are in Mary’s
chamber, represented with fidelity to detail yet lit in sur-
prising ways, even from below. Mary has been reading at
a prie-dieu when God the Father bursts in from the loggia,
stretching forth his hands as if sending down the dove of
the Holy Spirit, although no dove is seen. Gabriel rushes in
through the door bearing a huge lily. He drops suddenly to
one knee, leaving the other bare, and raises his arm in a
theatrical gesture, staring with wide eyes below flying
yellow locks of hair. Mary turns toward us and opens her
hands in wonder, yet at the same time she seems to shrink
into herself, her eyes staring in an expression that is half
awe, half trance. A cat scurries away in terror, casting a
shadow on the floor, as does the rushing angel.

The very oddness of the scene and its peculiar lighting
suggest a familiarity with Parmigianino and Domenico
Beccafumi. The objects in the Virgin’s room include a cur-
tained bed decorated with gold balls, a shelf with books, a
candle, and an inkstand, a towel hanging from a nail, and,

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strangest of all, an hourglass with the sands half run out,
partly covered with a cloth; such an emphasis on still-life
details may reflect the influence of Netherlandish painting.
The naturalistic details of Lotto’s setting and his strict bib-
lical interpretation of the event, which emphasizes Mary’s
surprise and her initial difficulty in understanding the
meaning of Gabriel’s message, may reveal Lotto’s engage-
ment with the religious crisis that was sweeping Europe in
the wake of the Protestant Reformation. The unexpected
presence of God the Father in this scene instead of the tra-
ditional dove, as well as the awkwardness of Gabriel — as
if he were somewhat uncomfortable with this unprece-
dented mission — demanded that the viewer ponder anew
the mystery of this subject. That Lotto has been credited
with the design of a frontispiece for an Italian translation

of the Bible published in 1532 may indicate a personal
engagement with religion that could have influenced his
novel interpretation of a much-represented subject.

In Lotto’s Madonna and Child with Saints Catherine
and Thomas (fig. 19.28), the blue of Mary’s tunic and
mantle fills the picture as if with the distilled quintessence
of sky and distant hills. The picture can be seen as a hymn
to youth, health, and beauty. The partly shadowed features
of the Virgin Mary seem almost ancient Greek in their
breadth and harmony, as is the sense of calm detachment
with which the Virgin, Christ, and Catherine welcome
Thomas into their company. The influence of the sea light
of Venice is apparent here, while Lotto’s brushwork, rich
yet restrained, recalls that of Correggio rather than the
bold, free strokes of Titian, which Lotto never emulated.

19.28. LORENZO LOTTO. Madonna and Child with Saints Catherine and Thomas . c. 1528-30. Canvas, 3'8 3 /4" x 5' (1.13 x 1.52 m).
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

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Lotto’s portraits are often strikingly original. His
Portrait of a Woman as Lucretia (fig. 19.29) is unparal-
leled in the history of Renaissance portraiture. Even this
tentative title is uncertain, for whether the woman asked to
be represented allegorically as the heroic ancient Roman
matron Lucretia or whether her intent was limited to
emphasizing the moral of the Lucretia story is uncertain.
Lucretia committed suicide after she was raped by
Tarquin, preferring to die rather than dishonor her
husband’s family. The drawing the sitter holds here shows
Lucretia’s death by the dagger, while the inscription from
Livy ( History of Rome 1:58) on the table implies that the

ancient Roman woman’s example sets a standard for
appropriate behavior. The sitter’s name was probably
Lucrezia (she is sometimes identified as Lucrezia
Valier, who was married in Venice in 1533), and the osten-
sible purpose of the painting would have been to demon-
strate her ideas about marital fidelity. Her hair is tied
up, indicating that she is married, since unmarried
women and brides in Venice usually wore their hair loose.
The determination of this wife to uphold Lucretia’s stan-
dards is expressed in her severe expression and the
vigorous manner in which she indicates both drawing
and inscription.

19.29. LORENZO LOTTO. Portrait of a Woman as Lucretia (Lucrezia Valier?). c. 1533. Canvas, 3 7 3 A x 43 1 /z" (95.9 x 110.5 cm).
National Gallery, London.

Lucrezia Valier married Benedetto Francesco Giuseppe Pesaro da San Benetto on January 19, 1533. Her identification as the sitter is
supported in part by the fact that the painting was in the Pesaro family collection in the late eighteenth century.

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Because fashion changed quickly in sixteenth-century
Venice, the design of Lucretia’s dress can be used to support
a date in the 1530s. Coats of arms were often character-
ized by stripes in contrasting colors; the brilliant and dis-
tinctive stripes of Lucretia’s dress may refer to the arms of
her or her husband’s family. Asymmetrical colored stripes
such as those on the front of the dress were often used to
make a broad figure seem less bulky — an effect that in this
case is undermined by the extravagant sleeves so popular
in the Renaissance. The prominent pendant with its large
square ruby and pendant pearl has been identified as
wedding jewelry because of its paired motifs, in this case
putti and cornucopia — symbols of abundance and fertility
appropriate to wedding iconography. The portrait’s many
exceptional details should not distract us from its revolu-
tionary nature. Probably painted less than two decades
after Leonardo’s Mona Lisa (see fig. 16.29), the bold
stance of the woman and her compelling glance reveal how
quickly one innovation could lead to another during the
Renaissance in Italy.

Tullio Lombardo

The continuing significance of antique models for Italian
sculptors is demonstrated in a marble relief by the north-
ern Italian artist Tullio Lombardo (c. 1455-1532). St.
Anthony of Padua and the Miracle of the Miser's Heart
was made for the tomb chapel of the saint in his church of
the Santo in Padua (fig. 19.30). When first put into place,

the relief must have seemed like a monumental demonstra-
tion of how an ancient Roman sculptor might have por-
trayed this Christian theme. The story is a dramatic one,
for the saint had predicted that after his death the heart of
a famous miser would be found not in his body but in his
money chest. The episode is clearly stated, with the Fran-
ciscan saint gesticulating over the emaciated corpse and the
male onlookers expressing their astonishment and dismay,
perhaps because they fear they may be guilty of the same
sin. The women, however, express no surprise. Perhaps the
woman in the right foreground, whose breasts are seen
through classicized drapery and who has a child at her feet,
is meant to represent the virtue Charity, often shown with
a child. Despite the Christian theme, the artist seems to
have focused on reviving an ancient mode, with impressive
figures, some in ancient dress, seen against a background
of ancient architecture, complete with a pediment, an arcade
of receding arches, and low-relief decorative patterns
drawn from Roman models. The dramatic responses of the
witnesses to the miracle cannot overwhelm the expression
of calm and order created by the stable composition.

To find such emphasis on ancient Roman style in the
works of a Venetian sculptor is not surprising, for at this
time the city’s intellectuals and politicians were arguing
that Venice was the true heir of ancient imperial Rome.
Venetians — both those in the city and those resident in
Venetian holdings on the mainland, which included
Padua — were actively collecting and displaying antiquities
and patronizing architecture built in a classicized mode.

19.30. TULLIO
LOMBARDO. St. Anthony of
Padua and the Miracle of the
Miser’s Heart . 1 520-25 .
Marble, width of relief 8'2V2"
(2.5 m); height of figures 51 "
(113 cm), m Chapel of St.
Anthony, the Santo, Padua.
Commissioned by the governors
of the Santo.

Tullio had already made one
relief for St. Anthony's tomb
chapel in the first years of the
sixteenth century; he was later
commissioned to create a
third but died without having
started it.

6 I 6 • THE CINQUECENTO

Painting in Northern Italy

During the first two decades of the Cinquecento, the plain
of the Po, with its wealthy cities, suffered under the dynas-
tic strife between the Venetian Republic, the Sforza dukes,
the French kings, the Hapsburg emperors (who were also
kings of Spain), and the papacy. Louis XII of France, who
had dethroned and imprisoned Ludovico Sforza, duke of
Milan, in 1500, was himself ejected by Swiss troops in the
service of Pope Julius II in 1512. Nonetheless King Francis
I of France returned to the duchy of Milan in 1515, only
to lose it for good to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V
in 1521. Milan, once a brilliant creative center, became
a Spanish province, ill-governed and economically
depressed. Parma, under the papacy, and Mantua and
Ferrara, independent duchies, fared better. So did the cities
of Bergamo, Brescia, Verona, and Vicenza, all enjoying the
enlightened government of Venice, which quickly recov-
ered its political and economic fortunes. Artistically, the

heritage of Mantegna remained a force to be reckoned
with in Milan, although it was less powerful than the phys-
ical presence, activity, and teaching of Leonardo da Vinci.
Parma, as we have seen, had strong ties to Rome. Ferrara
had its own artistic tradition, but Brescia and Cremona did
not. All three were inevitably submerged in the tide of col-
orism flowing from Venice.

At the turn of the century, the Milanese scene was dom-
inated by clones of Leonardo, whose works at times were
so close to his that attribution problems still plague spe-
cialists. These imitators were seldom original, but the
works of Bartolomeo Suardi (c. 1465-1530), known as
Bramantino (he had studied with Bramante), demonstrate
that he is an exception. A painter of the Milanese school,
Bramantino may have been influenced in spatial construc-
tion by Mantegna and in coloring by Giovanni Bellini, but
if so, these were assimilated into his personal vision, as is
revealed in his Adoration of the Magi (fig. 19.31). The
painting’s size and simple symmetrical composition suggest

19.31. BRAMANTINO. Adoration of the Magi. c. 1500. Panel, 22 3 /s x 2 1 5 /s " (56.8 x 55 cm). National Gallery, London.

HIGH AND LATE RENAISSANCE IN VENICE AND ON THE MAINLAND • 617

that it was made for private devotion. Seated on a block of
stone in a ruined classical building, the Virgin is flanked by
Isaiah and Daniel. The latter, shown as a disheveled way-
farer, looks out to the spectator. On either side stand two
bareheaded magi, the older earning what looks like an
ancient gold vase, the younger a rose quartz bowl. The
third magus is barely visible behind the youngest, and
Joseph is relegated to the extreme left. Bramantino seems
to have been fascinated with the asymmetrical balances
between, in the foreground, the circular turban, circular
basin, and rectangular basins, and, in the background, the
architecture, which was perfect until it was suddenly shat-
tered. The broad handling of anatomical forms and

drapery is as typical of Bramantino as is the harmony of
the colors, dominated by the sonorous blue in the Virgin’s
mantle, the rose of her tunic, the red lining of the left-hand
magus’s cloak, and the unexpected and magnificent olive-
green of the cloak of the youngest Magus. In this demon-
stration of clarity and serenity, Bramantino achieved his
personal version of the High Renaissance style.

The impact of Giorgione’s innovations is evident in the
northern Italian centers, where many practitioners of the
Giorgionesque manner achieved a high level of poetic
charm. An example is the Ferrarese school led by the Dossi
brothers, especially Dosso Dossi (Giovanni de Lutero, c.
1490-1542). His Melissa (fig. 19.32) represents a benign

19.32. DOSSO DOSSI. Melissa. 1520s. Canvas, 5'9V4" x 5'8V2" (1.76 x 1.74 m). Borghese Gallery, Rome.

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character in Ariosto’s influential epic Orlando Furioso
who frees humans turned into animals or plants by the
sorceress Alcina. When Melissa burns Alcina’s seals and
erases her spells, two men begin to emerge from the trunks
of trees. Men-at-arms, presumably just liberated, relax in
the background, while a naturalistic dog — in whom surely
lurks a person — gazes longingly at the suit of armor he will
soon be allowed to resume. Dosso tamed Giorgione’s
hostile nature; his trees are an array of standardized land-
scape elements that provide a perfect setting for this
magical scene. The crimson-and-gold brocade of Melissa’s
robe is striking against the gold-and-green sparkle of trees
and meadows.

In Venetian territory since 1426, the Lombard city of
Brescia had been subject to influences from Leonardesque
Milan and Bellinesque Venice. Nonetheless its painters
generally maintained a tradition of naturalism that is often

considered characteristic of Lombardy as a whole since the
Gothic period (see figs. 5.21, 5.24). The Brescian Girolamo
Savoldo (c. 1480-after 1548) was working in Florence in
1508 and absorbed something of the Florentine anatomi-
cal and draftsmanly tradition, but because he settled in
Venice in 1520, he is often included among the Venetian
school. Of the same generation as Giorgione and Lotto,
Savoldo generally used figure and landscape arrangements
from the Giorgionesque tradition, while his deep coloristic
resonance came from his use of Venetian glazes. Savoldo
continued the Venetian emphasis on poetic effects, but his
poetry seems to have been based on fact. The two figures
in Tobias and the Angel (fig. 19.33) must have been
painted from models posed in a strong crosslight. It is not
hard to imagine Savoldo picking up wings for the
archangel at the poultry market, and the fish — whose liver
oil will restore the sight of Tobias’ father — looks fresh.

19.33. GIROLAMO SAVOLDO. Tobias and the Angel Early 1530s. Canvas, 37 3 /4 x 49 1 A" (95.9 x 125.7 cm). Borghese Gallery, Rome.

• 619

HIGH AND LATE RENAISSANCE IN VENICE AND ON THE MAINLAND

Here miracles are achieved by figures who appear as if they
are a natural part of everyday life.

Alessandro Bonvicino, called Moretto (c. 1498-1554), is
a sturdy realist who grew to maturity in Brescia during
Savoldo’s absence and came to dominate the local scene.
Like Savoldo, he began under the spell of Giorgione, but
Moretto’s devotion to fact soon took over, even in the real-
ization of religious visions. His Ecce Homo with Angel
(fig. 19.34) is not the customary representation of the tor-
mented Jesus in his mock royal robe, crowned with thorns,
and displayed by Pilate to the people of Jerusalem. Here it
is a grieving angel, holding the seamless garment woven by
Mary, who presents Christ to worshippers. Modeled with
a combination of Michelangelesque grandeur and earthy

19.34. MORETTO. Ecce Homo with Angel, c. 1550-54. Canvas,
7^k n x 4 TV 4 " (2.14 x 1.25 m). Pinacoteca Tosio Martinengo, Brescia.

19.35. MORETTO. Portrait of a Young Man (Count Fortunato
Martinengo Cesaresco?). c. 1542. Canvas, 3'8 7 /8 n x 3'1"

(1.14 x 0.94 m). National Gallery, London.

realism, Christ sits across a step in a narrow staircase,
perhaps a reference to the famous relic of the Scala
Sancta, which had been brought to Rome from Jerusalem.
The painting emphasizes Christ’s physical torture and
mental humiliation, but at the same time the stairway to
Pilate’s palace on which he is seated becomes the stairway
to heaven. Thus the literalism of Moretto’s art is raised
to a level of spirituality that can be connected to his
engagement with Catholic reform in northern Italy during
this period.

For many Renaissance painters, especially in the smaller
cities, portraiture was an important source of income and
also — depending on the sitter — a possible opportunity for
innovation. Moretto’s Portrait of a Young Man (fig. 19.35)
provides another contribution to our understanding of
how Renaissance individualism could be expressed in
works of art. The sitter has been tentatively identified as
Count Fortunato Martinengo Cesaresco, a Brescian noble-
man whose marriage in 1542 was perhaps commemorated
by this portrait. That he thought of himself as a scholar
and collector is indicated by the bronze inkwell in the
shape of a foot and the ancient coins scattered near it, but

6 2 0

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the more revealing aspect of the portrait is his concern that
we understand his melancholic character. An inscription in
Greek — another scholarly affectation — on his velvet cap
states “Alas, I desire too much.” That he already has a
great deal is obvious in his black silk, gold-embroidered,
and fur-trimmed clothing and the rich silk-and-gold
brocade seen against a marble wall that provides the back-
ground. These possessions are, however, just foils for the
lassitude of his pose, his elbow resting on two pink-velvet
tasseled pillows, and the ennui of his expression. During
the Renaissance, the melancholic personality was consid-
ered to be the most creative and was especially linked with
artists and scholars — an association that dates back to
antiquity. By assuming a melancholic pose and demeanor,
Moretto’s sitter was relating himself to some of the leading
intellectuals of the dav.

While portraits of craftsmen were common in the
Netherlands, most Italian Renaissance portraits were
commissioned by nobility or wealthy businesspeople. One
remarkable exception is the Portrait of a Tailor (fig. 19.36)
by Giovanni Battista Moroni (c. 1520/24-after 1578), a
leading painter of Bergamo who also worked in other
northern centers. While Moroni was trained in the work-
shop of Moretto and his early works show the impact of
his master’s composition and naturalism, his mature
portraits are characterized by restraint in composition and
color. The circumstances under which Moroni painted the
portrait are unknown: perhaps the sitter was an admired
friend whose trade and appearance the artist chose to
commemorate as a fellow craftsman; perhaps, as is docu-
mented in later centuries, two individuals arranged a
trade — maybe this portrait in exchange for a garment or
two. The thoughtful nature of the tailor is evident in the
manner in which he looks up from his work to focus his
attention on the viewer. Like a modern tailor, he has used
chalk to mark the outlines where he will cut; his left hand
holds the black fabric, his right the scissors, their distance
above the worktable indicated by their shadow on the
wood surface. The crisp white of his ruffled collar and
sleeves sets off the warm white of his jacket against the
cool grey background, the elegance of his clothing suggest-
ing his skill and his success at his chosen trade, while his
short beard, mustache, and hair suggest a working man’s
efficiency. The modest codpiece expresses his masculinity.
In rendering the tailor’s jacket, Moroni used light strokes
on dark for the areas in shadow, dark strokes on light for
the areas that are fully lit. In this innovative and unex-
pected portrait of a working man there is no place for the
aristocratic melancholy expressed in Moretto’s portrait.

One of the most successful of northern Italian painters
during this period was a woman, Sofonisba Anguissola
(c. 1532-1625). During the Middle Ages, women played a

HIGH AND LATE RENAISSANCE IN

role in the art of manuscript illumination, much of which
was done in convents. Although lists of women illumina-
tors are preserved, no surviving Italian manuscript can be
specifically connected with a female artist. When panel and
fresco painting began to flourish on the Italian peninsula,
the secular botteghe where these works were created
became part of the controlled world of male activity. The
exclusionary nature of the guilds meant that women were
generally prevented from practicing in the crafts and pro-
fessions, and the need to study from the nude male model
reinforced the exclusion of women. In the course of the
sixteenth century, however, some women became active as
artists and several achieved reputations beyond their
hometowns. It is uncertain how much their artistic activity
is due to changes in the social and intellectual status of
women in society and the transformation of painting from
a Mechanical to a Liberal Art in the course of the Cinque-
cento. Ancient sources supported the acceptance of women
as professional artists: in his Natural History . Pliny the
Elder had written, “Women too have been painters." At
first women artists seem to have been considered some-
thing between an oddity and a miracle. Most achieved

19.36. GIOVANNI BATISTA MORONI. Portrait of a Tailor.
c. 1570. Canvas, 39Vs x 30 5 /i6 n (99.5 x 77 cm). National Gallery,
London.

VENICE AND ON THE MAINLAND • 621

their training by serving as assistants to their painter
fathers; Sofonisba was the only successful woman painter
of this era not trained at home.

Sofonisba was the eldest of six daughters of Amilcare
Anguissola, a learned and noble gentleman in Cremona.
She was named after a queen of ancient Tyre, and three of
her five sisters were called Minerva, Europa, and Elena
(after Helen of Troy). Amilcare brought two of his daugh-
ters to study the art of painting with Bernardino Campi,
youngest of a dynasty of painters who controlled artistic
life in Cremona. The sisters were also taught musical per-
formance, languages, and literature, but Amilcare’s partic-
ular emphasis on the art of painting may have had a
practical basis, for he complained to Michelangelo of the
difficulty of supporting six daughters in their appropriate
station in life.

Amilcare wrote to Michelangelo in 1557, offering to
have Sofonisba “color in oil” a drawing by Michelangelo,
if he would so favor her. Amilcare apparently knew that in
his last years Michelangelo made a practice of giving draw-
ings to others to paint from, and judging from Amilcare’s
next letter, Michelangelo complied. Neither the drawing,
the painting, nor Michelangelo’s response to Sofonisba’s
work is preserved, but the reply seems to have been com-
plimentary, as Amilcare thanked him profusely.

Sofonisba’s output was mainly portraits, although a few
religious subjects by her hand are also known. Most of
Sofonisba’s portraits appear to have been commissioned,
and they must have provided a welcome addition to the
family income. They are characterized by directness and
penetration of character.

Anguissola also painted more than a dozen self-por-
traits. Some show her at the easel painting a representation
of the Madonna and Child; such a scene is probably based
on images of St. Luke, the patron saint of artists who, tra-
dition held, had painted a portrait of Mary and the infant
Christ from life. In others she shows herself playing an
instrument or reading. One shows her with her husband
and in yet another she depicts Bernardino Campi, her
teacher, painting her portrait. Since the latter was con-
ceived and painted by Sofonisba, it too must be considered
a self-portrait. Why Anguissola painted so many self-por-
traits is revealed in a remark made by the contemporary
poet and playwright Annibale Caro, who wrote “There is
nothing I desire more than an image of the artist herself, so
that in a single work I can exhibit two marvels, one the
work, the other the artist.” Evidently Anguissola ’s self-por-
traits were purchased and prized because they documented
the novelty that was a woman artist in Renaissance Italy.
Rather than demonstrating a self-referential focus, the
quantity of Sofonisba’s self-portraits reveals that she was
responding to market demands.

The self-portrait by Anguissola discussed here is a
miniature (fig. 19.37) — an important category of art
during the sixteenth century since husbands, wives, and
lovers carried miniatures of each other. Miniatures were
given as gifts and collected by connoisseurs. As Vasari
wrote, “Such works are not for public viewing, and cannot
be seen by everyone, such as paintings, sculpture, and
architecture by our other artists and artisans.” This acco-
lade appeared in his “Life of Giulio Clovio,” an important
miniaturist whose portrait Anguissola painted and with
whom she may have studied the art of miniature painting.

The large medallion that Anguissola holds has proved
difficult to interpret. The inscription around the edge iden-
tifies the artist/sitter as Sofonisba Anguissola from
Cremona. The overlapped, decorative letters in the middle

19.37. SOFONISBA ANGUISSOLA. Self-Portrait, c. 1552.
Oil on parchment on cardboard, 3V4 x 2V2" (8.3 x 6.4 cm).
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

It has been suggested that this miniature was intended to be a
gift to the miniaturist Giulio Clovio.

6 22

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have been interpreted as referring to her family name and
the first letters of her sisters’ names. Another, more likely
theory is that the letters refer to a Latin phrase that identi-
fies Sofonisba as a member of a noble Cremonese family
and proclaims her as a virtuous artist.

Sofonisba is acknowledged as the inventor of a new type
of group portraiture in which the sitters are not merely
aligned and accompanied by conventional props, as was
customary, but shown in lively activity. Her most famous
work is her Portrait of the Artist’s Three Sisters with their
Governess (fig. 19.38). Group portraiture was still rela-
tively rare at mid-century, as were paintings of everyday
activities, and this painting successfully combines the two
genres. It was probably not a commissioned work; perhaps
Sofonisba found time for such an invention in a lull

between commissions. Sensitive to the interplay of inti-
macy and rivalry in a large household, Sofonisba concen-
trated on a single moment during a game of chess, which
at the time was called “scacchi.” An older sister on the left
has made her move and turns for admiration to the artist
and to us. The next oldest, planning a coup, searches her
sister’s unsuspecting face and raises her right hand for the
devastating move. The youngest sister sees what is coming
and laughs, while a governess looks on. While the poses
are somewhat wooden, perhaps reflecting Sofonisba’s
exclusion from training in figure drawing, the painting is
both ambitious in its efforts to create an animated moment
and revolutionary in the mood of shared family experience
that it conveys. That Sofonisba showed women engaged in
a game that, in 1554, had been praised as requiring

19.38. SOFONISBA ANGUISSOLA . Portrait of the Artis fs Three Sisters with their Governess. 1555. Oil on canvas, 27 5 /s x 37" (70 x 94 cm)
Narodowe Museum, Poznan.

Of this painting Vasari wrote: ‘ I must relate that I saw this year in the house of her father at Cremona, in a picture executed with great diligence
by her hand, portraits of her three sisters in the act of playing chess, and with them an old woman of the household, all done with such care and
such spirit, that they have the appearance of being alive.”

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6 23

“brains, skill, and memory” is another indication of the
forward-looking nature of this painting.

In Anguissola’s paintings, the masses of the figures are
convincing, and everything that propriety allows to emerge
from the stiffness of sixteenth-century costume is carefully
constructed. Anguissola’s brushwork delineates every
nuance of the faces and fabrics — a focus on detail that in
the case of her family portrait serves to freeze the moment.
In comparison to the loose brushwork being practiced at
this time by Titian, the detail in her paintings seems to be
a reference back to the Quattrocento. Conservative
patrons and buyers who expected paintings that demon-
strated skill in the rendering of visual reality must have
found these works impressive.

Anguissola’s accomplishments in the face of the difficul-
ties she must have faced are impressive and speak of her
determination to succeed in a period when the professional
success of women was unexpected. Her fame during the
Renaissance was widespread, and her works entered the
collections of Pope Julius III and those of the Borghese,
Este, Farnese, and Medici families during her lifetime. In
1558 Anguissola went on a voyage to Sicily, and the next
year she was appointed lady-in-waiting to the queen of
Spain, to whose territories both Cremona and Sicily
belonged. While serving in Spain, she painted the king and
queen and many members of the court in the restrained
manner required by court etiquette there. She eventually
returned to Sicily, where she died in 1625 at the age of
ninety-two, the first internationally recognized woman
artist of whom we have both certain knowledge and a
large body of works.

Tintoretto

In the middle and late Cinquecento, Tintoretto and
Veronese challenged Titian for the leadership of the Venet-
ian School. The older and more dramatic of these younger
artists is Jacopo Robusti (1518-1594), called Tintoretto
(“little dyer”) after his father’s trade as a dyer. Attempts
have been made to identify Tintoretto’s teacher, but his
style is so original that no consensus has been reached.
Carlo Ridolfi, who wrote about Tintoretto in the seven-
teenth century and had access to local traditions, states
that he worked in the studio of Titian until the master saw
one of the boy’s drawings, inquired who did it, and ejected
him from his house. To the end of his days, however,
Tintoretto had an unrequited admiration for Titian, whom
he considered his true teacher. Titian’s contrary opinion of
Tintoretto may have arisen partly from fear, for, as we shall
see, this young man offered formidable competition to all
artists seeking public commissions. But more likely Titian’s
distaste is attributable to fundamental incompatibilities of

personality, stylistic aim, and method. Titian’s careful
craftsmanship, with its succession of glazes, and his dis-
trust of his own unfinished paintings are the antithesis of
Tintoretto’s impetuosity.

We are told that in 1564, when artists competing for the
commission of a ceiling painting in the Scuola di San
Rocco in Venice arrived, as instructed, with their scale
models, they were outraged to find that during the night
Tintoretto had already installed his full-sized, completed
painting in the intended location. This and other infrac-
tions of guild rules aroused hostility from artists and
conservative elements of the citizenry. Nevertheless, Tin-
toretto’s strategy worked, and he obtained many commis-
sions. Although it made enemies for him, this spontaneity
is an essential aspect of his style. Tintoretto’s art offers
fast-moving action and passionate emotion, both sup-
ported by the velocity of his execution.

A story is told about two Flemish artists, whose scrupu-
lously detailed and polished drawings astonished the
Venetian public. Tintoretto’s response was to pick up a
piece of unsharpened charcoal and in a matter of minutes,
with a few rough, hooklike strokes, knock an action figure
into abundant and astonishing life, whereupon he com-
mented, “We poor Venetians can only draw like this.” Tin-
toretto’s preserved drawings (fig. 19.39) are almost
exclusively in this hasty style, yet they were apparently
accurate enough to serve as a basis for his compositions.
According to Ridolfi, an inscription on the wall of
Tintoretto’s workshop proclaimed “The Color of Titian
and the Drawing of Michelangelo,” suggesting that his art
was a combination of these two forces, although we never
encounter detailed life studies in Michelangelo’s manner
by Tintoretto.

Tintoretto apparently had little patience with the time-
consuming methods of Titian. He must have felt an over-
powering urge to cover vast areas of canvas rapidly.
Financial rewards, incidentally, seem to have had little to
do with this desire, as he often underbid his competitors
and is reported to have painted certain works for the cost
of the materials alone. In order to speed up his production,
Tintoretto primed his canvases with dark tones — gray-
green, brown, or slate-gray — and sometimes even divided
the priming into different color areas to correspond to the
tonal divisions of the finished painting. From the sketches
he then outlined figures on the priming, which served as
the basic tone for the shadowed areas. Once the light areas
were painted in with bright colors, creating an effect rather
like drawing on a blackboard with colored chalks, the
picture was virtually complete and needed only a few tonal
refinements in crucial areas. As a result, the underlying
dark dominates Tintoretto’s pictures, which sometimes
look as if the action were taking place in the middle of a

624 *

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thunderstorm illuminated by sudden flashes of lightning.
Unfortunately, in some canvases the dark underpainting
has begun to bleed through, dimming the overlying colors.

Another time-saving device that Tintoretto used was
the wide, square-ended brush introduced by Titian. Tin-
toretto’s strokes, however, were so wide that the nine-
teenth-century critic John Ruskin accused him of painting
with a broom. Today the vigor of Tintoretto’s brushwork
is a source of enjoyment, but there is evidence that in the
late 1540s, when he introduced his new style at full inten-
sity, some of his contemporaries dismissed his works as

deplorably hasty in execution. We are told that Tintoretto
prearranged his compositions by posing small wax figures
in wooden box-stages, sometimes hanging them from
wires and turning them at angles to study the foreshorten-
ings that play an important role in his dramatic technique.
He even moved little lamps about to achieve vivid
chiaroscuro contrasts. By means of a grid of horizontal
and vertical threads or wires across the front of the box,
Tintoretto could record his composition on squared paper
in a relatively short time (fig. 19.39), and, using another
grid, his pupils could enlarge it on the dark-primed canvas

19.39. TINTORETTO. Study for a Bowman in
the Capture of Zara. Before 1585. Black chalk,
14 3 /8 x 8 5 /s" (36 x 22 cm). Gabinetto dei Disegni
e Stampe, Uffizi Gallery, Florence.

HIGH AND LATE RENAISSANCE IN VENICE AND ON THE MAINLAND * 625

in a matter of hours, ready for their master to paint in the
lighted areas. Tintoretto’s daughter, Marietta Robusti, was
an important member of the workshop and apparently
also executed works of her own design, but no pictures can
be certainly attributed to her, nor can her hand be defini-
tively identified within her father’s production.

If Tintoretto had died at an early age, he would have
remained an art-historical curiosity. His first serious threat
to Titian and his followers was St. Mark Freeing a Christ-
ian Slave , painted for the Scuola Grande di San Marco (fig.
19.40). According to legend, the slave of a knight of
Provence left without permission to go to Alexandria to
venerate the relics of St. Mark. On his return, his master
decided to punish him by having his eyes gouged out and
his legs broken with hammers, but St. Mark himself came
down from heaven to liberate the slave. At the right, the

knight is about to fall off his throne with surprise, while on
the ground the foreshortened figure of the slave is sur-
rounded by broken ropes and miraculously smashed hard-
ware. A wave of astonished servants, executioners, and
bystanders, at once moving away and looking backward
and down, flank the saint. At the top, St. Mark zooms
downward into the picture. Together with a turbaned
servant lifting a broken hammer this figure forms a kind
of pinwheel composition in depth — the basis for many of
Tintoretto’s cyclonic compositions.

The colors of St Mark Freeing a Christian Slave blaze
against the dark shadows, and the brushwork of the
drapery, glittering armor, sparkling curls, and faces throb-
bing with emotion becomes a vivid record of the painter’s
gestures. Restoration has revealed that this work was orig-
inally an octagonal ceiling painting, and that the artist

19.40. TINTORETTO. St. Mark Freeing a Christian Slave. 1548. Canvas, 13'7" x 17T0" (4.16 x 5.44 m). Accademia, Venice.
Commissioned by the head of the Confraternity of S. Marco for the Scuola Grande di S. Marco.

Our illustration shows the original shape of the painting, with its corners truncated to form an octagonal shape.

6z6

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placed figures diagonally so that they are parallel or per-
pendicular to the angles of the corners.

The picture was controversial when it was unveiled
in 1548. Although the poet Pietro Aretino supported it,
adverse criticism emanating largely from the workshop of
Titian caused Tintoretto to take his picture back. He kept
it in his workshop for several years but later returned it to
the scuola , and in 1562 the scuola’s guardian, Tommaso
Rangone of Ravenna, offered to pay for three more pic-
tures to continue the Legend of St. Mark. One of these rep-
resents the Transport of the Body of St. Mark (fig. 19.41).
Captured by non-believers, the saint was dragged through
the streets of Alexandria for two days until he died. As
they were about to burn his body (note the pyre in the
background), a storm broke, the captors fled, and the
Christians were able to carry the body reverently to burial.

Tintoretto set the scene in a long paved square not
unlike the Piazza San Marco in Venice, yet another indica-
tion of the self-referentiality of Venetian art; the suggestion
is that the body of the saint is being carried toward San
Marco, where it will be respectfully interred. The orthogo-
nals formed by the paving stones and arcades recede
rapidly into the distance, while the little band of followers,
about to load the body onto a camel, emerge at the right.
The tension in depth created by the emphasis on dramatic
recession, appearing here for the first time in Tintoretto’s
art, became a standard compositional device in his mature
and late works, as frequent as the pinwheel and sometimes
combined with it. The perspective is accurate enough as far
as the orthogonals go, but the arches, possibly painted by
pupils, do not coordinate with the rest of the setting. This
is the kind of detail that Tintoretto allowed to pass and that

19.41. TINTORETTO. Transport
of the Body of St. Mark. 1562-66.
Canvas, 13T0" x 10’ (4.2 x 3 m).
Accademia, Venice. Commissioned
by Tommaso Rangone for the Scuola
Grande di S. Marco.

HIGH AND LATE RENAISSANCE IN VENICE AND ON THE MAINLAND * 627

must have infuriated other artists. But his foreshortening
of the figures, the rapidity of their action, and the rush
of the captors for shelter under the arcade demonstrate
his power. Had Tintoretto tried to paint them slowly, they
would have been both less effective and less spontaneous.
And if the lightning is a trifle stagy, the rush of water
across the stones of the piazza is convincing. Rangone, in
the gown of a Venetian patrician, is shown gently support-
ing the head of the saint on his chest, while Tintoretto
painted his own bearded features just to the right of the
camel’s neck.

Tintoretto’s crowning achievement is a cycle of some
fifty paintings for the Scuola di San Rocco and its neigh-
boring church (fig. 19.42). Most of these paintings were
executed between 1564 and 1587. His Crucifixion in the
Sala dell’Albergo (fig. 19.43) presents a panorama of
Golgotha populated by a crowd of soldiers, executioners,
horsemen, and apostles. At the left, the cross of the peni-
tent thief is being partly lifted, partly tugged into place by
ropes; at the right the unrepentant thief is about to be
tied to his cross. A soldier on a ladder behind Christ
reaches down to take the reed with the sponge soaked in
vinegar from another soldier on the ground. The tumult of

the crowd, the grief of the apostles, and the yearning
of the penitent thief seem to come to a focus in the head
of Christ.

Owing to Tintoretto’s light-on-dark technique, his
figures sometimes have a tendency to look a bit ghostly,
but the foreground figures in the Crucifixion , grouped in a
massive pyramid at the base of the cross, are defined by
vigorous contours and modeled to create a strong sculp-
tural effect. Tintoretto’s interest in expression is evident in
the head of Joseph of Arimathea, who, holding his hands
crossed on his breast, looks with sympathy at the Virgin
swooning under the cross. The little group, huddled as if
for protection against the hostile crowds, forms the base of
the composition.

For the Sala Grande on the upper story, the scuola " s
theological advisers devised a scheme relating Old and
New Testament subjects to each other and to the scuola " s
charitable goals. Although each scene is part of an icono-
graphic and formal totality, each also functions as an indi-
vidual image. Because Moses Striking Water from the Rock
(fig. 19.44) is a ceiling painting, the reproduction should
be held overhead to appreciate more fully Tintoretto’s
method. We look up along the diagonals of the square,

19.42. Sala Grande of the Scuola di S. Rocco, Venice, with paintings by TINTORETTO. Commissioned by the Brotherhood of S. Rocco.
The ceiling of the Sala Grande was painted in 1575-77 and the walls in 1577-81 (see figs. 19.44-19.45).

628

THE CINQUECENTO

19.43. TINTORETTO. Crucifixion. 1565. Canvas, 17'7" x 40'2" (5.4 x 12.3 m). m Sala dell’Albergo, Scuola di S. Rocco, Venice.
Commissioned by the Brotherhood of S. Rocco.

19.44. TINTORETTO. Moses Striking Water from the Rock. 1575-77.
Canvas, 18'2V2" x 17'2 3 /V (5.6 x 5.3 m). it Sala Grande, Scuola di S. Rocco,
Venice. Commissioned by the Brotherhood of S. Rocco.

HIGH AND LATE RENAISSANCE IN VENICE AND ON THE MAINLAND

6 29

19.45. TINTORETTO. Nativity. 1577-81.
Canvas, height 17’9" (5.4 m). m Sala Grande,
Scuola di S. Rocco, Venice. Commissioned by
the Brotherhood of S. Rocco.

past a series of foreshortened figures, to the miracle on
which the figures converge: water pouring in arcs of light
at the touch of Moses’ rod. The illusion suggests that the
water would fall on our heads were it not for the interven-
ing receptacles. At the upper right corner, God the Father
floats into the picture, partly enclosed in a circle of
light. The composition is built on the opposition between
the movement of the figures on the one hand, and the arcs,
the heavenly circle, and the smaller circles of the bowls
on the other.

In the scenes of the Sala Grande, Tintoretto’s light-on-
dark technique imparts a shadowy and diaphanous
appearance to the figures, even when he devoted some
attention to modeling an occasional important face or
limb. The light areas surrounding silhouetted dark heads
often seem more solid than the heads themselves. In some
scenes, the principal figures are raised to an upper level. In
the Nativity (fig. 19.45), for example, the shepherds, a
woman, and some animals are below, while the Holy

Family and two more women huddle in the hayloft above,
illuminated by the light coming through the rafters and the
ruined roof. Here, as in other San Rocco compositions, the
diagonal poses complement and continue the diagonals
established for the space by the perspective orthogonals.

Tintoretto was responsible for several hundred works
that still survive, as well as for a considerable number that
perished in a fire that gutted the Doge’s Palace in Venice in
1577. To replace an earlier fresco of the same subject lost
in the fire, Tintoretto, his son Domenico, and his assistants
created a huge representation of Paradise in the palace’s
Hall of the Great Council (see fig. 19.54). Here, as in many
of the works of Titian’s last years, both material substance
and worldly concerns seem to dissolve before our eyes, and
in the darkness of his paintings a transcendent light shines.

One of Tintoretto’s last works, finished in the year of his
death, is the Last Supper he made for San Giorgio
Maggiore (fig. 19.46), where its otherworldliness contrasts
with the architectural setting by Palladio (see figs.

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19.46. TINTORETTO. Last Supper. 1592-94. Canvas, 12' x 18'8" (3.7 x 5.7 m). it S. Giorgio Maggiore, Venice. Probably commissioned by
Michele Alabardi, prior of S. Giorgio Maggiore.

1 9.66-19.68). The painting is placed on the side wall to
the right of the free-standing high altar, and its dynamism
in this setting is demonstrated in figure 19.47. The long
table, set on a diagonal in depth, divides the material from
the spiritual. To the right of the diagonal, servants gather
up the remains of the feast and stack the dishes in a basket,
where they attract the interest of a cat. A dog crunches a
bone at the foot of the table. Another servant (distin-
guished as such by his clothing and his cap, although the
figure might be Judas) sits on the floor with his elbow on
the table, trying to understand what he sees. But behind
the table the emphasis is on the light of the spirit, which
surrounds the heads of the eleven apostles, bursts in rays
from the head of Christ as he stands to give Communion,

19.47. Photograph of fig. 19.46 in situ in S. Giorgio Maggiore (see
figs. 19.66-19.67).

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streams from the flames of the hanging lamp, and floats in
wisps that assume the shapes of angels — heavenly minis-
ters who contrast with the worldly servants. At the end of
his life, Tintoretto’s light-on-dark technique, invented to
lend speed to his brush, becomes a vehicle for revelation.

Paolo Veronese

The second of the aged Titian’s competitors was Paolo
Caliari (1528-1588), called Paolo Veronese because of his
birth and training in Verona. He came to Venice in 1553,
and for the next thirty-five years delighted the Venetians
with his style, which in some ways seems to be diametri-

cally opposed to that of Tintoretto. Veronese, too, painted
biblical suppers, but his concern was with material splen-
dor and sumptuous costumes. In his canvases, contempo-
rary Venice passes before our eyes in a parade of marble
palaces and healthy people, dressed in velvets, satins, and
brocades, eating, drinking, and making love with the stolid
conviction that this was all they were meant to do in this
world. In his festivals and pageants, Veronese offered a
bouquet of high and clear hues, dominated by the pale
tones of marble columns and by lemon yellows, light blues,
silvery whites, and delicate salmon.

Looking a little more deeply into Veronese, one encoun-
ters two surprises. First, as Carlo Ridolfi wrote sixty years

19.48. PAOLO VERONESE.
Triumph ofMordecai . 1556.
Canvas, 24 x 18' (7.3 x 5.5 m).
m S. Sebastiano, Venice.
Commissioned by Bernardo
Toriioni, prior of S. Sebastiano.
Veronese is buried in this church,
where his tomb is surrounded by
his paintings.

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after the artist’s death, Veronese was a model of rectitude
and piety who brought up his sons according to severe
religious and moral principles. Though he “wore expensive
clothes and velvet shoes,” he lived “far from luxury: was
parsimonious in his expenses, whereby he had the money to
acquire many farms and to accumulate riches and
furnishings.” Second, Veronese seems to have been as
impatient as Tintoretto with Titian’s time-consuming
methods and, like Tintoretto, invented a shorthand style
of execution.

Veronese often achieved a kind of intoxication through
color. Establishing the basic masses of his architectural set-
tings, he subdivided the remaining fields into areas, each of
which was covered with a layer of bright underpaint,
giving Veronese his ground color and allowing him to see
exactly its relationship to the adjoining hue. Once these
layers dried, he could add a system of simplified highlights
in a modified version of the same hue or in a contrasting
hue to give a hint of iridescence while at the same time
avoiding shadows. This method enabled Veronese to paint
the specifics of drapery and architecture rapidly, and yet
with a seeming accuracy of detail which, to the viewer’s
surprise, vanishes at close range. He maintained a level of
visual observation that keeps observers standing a certain
distance from his canvases so that they are always aware
of the total decorative effect. By these means, Veronese was
able to create a number of large canvases without any
appearance of haste.

Two years after his arrival in Venice, Veronese began the
decorative series — frescoes, altarpiece, ceiling paintings,
and organ shutters — that transformed the church of San

Sebastiano into a dazzling display of Venetian painting by
a single artist. He decorated the central ceiling oval with
the Triumph of Mordecai (fig. 19.48) as part of the story
of the Old Testament heroine Esther that expresses the
victory of faith over heresy. He envisioned the biblical
scene (Esther 8:15) as if it were happening in a Renaissance
city: “And Mordecai went out from the presence of the
king in royal apparel of blue and white, and with a great
crown of gold, and with a garment of fine linen and
purple: and the city ... rejoiced and was glad.” Veronese’s
painting of mighty steeds, spiral columns, and balconies
with figures shown against the blue sky is a daring demon-
stration of di sotto in su illusionism. Like Mantegna (see
fig. 15.26), whose murals in Mantua he may have studied,
Veronese played tricks on the spectator; we instinctively
duck from the threatening hooves. The drama is height-
ened by the crumbling brickwork in the foreground.

Veronese went to Rome in 1560, but his trip had little
effect on his style beyond his quotation of an occasional
ancient motif. In the frescoes he painted at the Villa
Barbaro at Maser, he accommodated his illusionistic
designs to Palladio’s architecture (see figs. 19.64— 19 . 65 ).
The iconographic program of Veronese’s decoration,
which may have been designed by the patron, Daniele
Barbaro, is replete with symbolism and learned references.
There are many brilliant trompe I’oeil effects, with painted
figures that seem to look down from balconies or peek
through partially open doors (fig. 19.49). There are also
Barbaro family portraits and landscapes both idyllic and
naturalistic, some portraying laborers working in the
fields. In his ceiling fresco of Wisdom , with the Seven

19.49. PAOLO VERONESE. Fresco cycle.
Crociera, Villa Barbaro, Maser. 1560-62.
Commissioned by Marcantonio and Daniele
Barbaro for their villa designed by Palladio
(see figs. 19.64-19.65).

The female figure with the musical instrument
probably represents a muse. The trompe Voeil
architectural setting may be the work of Benedetto
Caliari, Veronese’s brother and assistant.

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Planetary Gods (fig. 19.50), he paid tribute to Raphael’s
Cupid Pointing Out Psyche to the Three Graces (see fig.
17.73) while again adapting his figures to a di sotto in sit
view. The high, silvery clouds recall those in the early
works of Titian.

The largest of Veronese’s scenes of feasting is the Mar-
riage at Cana (fig. 19.51), painted for the refectory of San
Giorgio Maggiore. Perhaps Tintoretto’s spiritualized Last
Supper , painted for the chancel of the same church a gen-
eration later, was in part a reaction to the work’s emphasis
on material splendor. Veronese’s table is laid on an open
terrace, with flanking Roman Doric colonnades and a
higher terrace at the back, set off by a balustrade, beyond
which one looks out to a campanile and clouds. One
hardly notices Christ and Mary in the midst of so much
architecture, so many brocaded garments and good things
to eat and drink on the table. The master of the feast, at
the base of the large column to the left, directs operations,
a black youth hands a glass of wine to a guest, and a cat at
the right rolls over to scratch a mask on the amphora in
which the wine is stored. The group of musicians in the
center includes portraits of the painter Jacopo Bassano (see
fig. 19.56) with a viol, Veronese himself with a viola da
braccio, and Titian with a bass viol. If anybody is con-
cerned about the miracle that has just taken place, the
spectator would never know it.

Ten years later, another refectory painting, apparently
commissioned as a representation of the Last Supper,
landed Veronese in trouble (fig. 19.52). He was brought
before the Inquisition and, in a trial of which the record is
still preserved, asked to account for the presence in the
painting of “buffoons, drunkards, dwarfs, Germans, and
similar vulgarities.” Veronese countered that he was taking
advantage of a kind of license granted to poets, painters,
and madmen. The trial ended when Veronese agreed to call
the painting the Feast in the House of Levi, a subject that
would give him the freedom to leave in the offending
figures, including a drunk soldier on the stairs at the right.

To clarify this new subject, Paolo inscribed “lucae
cap. v” (Luke, Chapter 5) on the balustrade, referring to a
passage that includes: “And Levi made him a great feast in
his own house: and there was a great company of publi-

19.50. PAOLO VERONESE. Wisdom , with the Seven Planetary
Gods. 1560-62. Fresco. Ceiling of the Salone, Villa Barbaro, Maser.
The program of the vault is allegorical and based on the ancient
gods. The figure in the center, a personification of Wisdom, is
surrounded by the seven planetary gods. The figures in the four
diagonal comers are Juno, Vulcan, Cybele, and Neptune, represent-
ing the Four Elements. The lunettes at the corners represent Venus,
Vulcan, Ceres, and Bacchus, as the Four Seasons.

cans and of others that sat down with them. But their
scribes and Pharisees murmured against his disciples,
saying, 'Why do ye eat and drink with publicans and
sinners?’ And Jesus answering said unto them, They that
are whole need not a physician; but they that are sick’”
(Luke 5:29-31). Christ sits in the center, chatting with the
publicans and their attendants. Shades of rose, yellow,
blue, green, and silver dazzle against the pale stone and the
blue of the sky with its sultry clouds. Veronese’s architec-
tural setting is reminiscent of the opulent contemporary
architecture developed by Jacopo Sansovino (see fig.
19.60), with veined marble columns for the smaller order
and gilded Victories in the spandrels.

Veronese’s Mystical Marriage of St. Catherine (fig.
19.53) is festive, but it lacks the mysticism inherent in the
subject. The Virgin is seated at the top of three steps,
between massive columns seen diagonally, somewhat like
those Titian introduced into his Pesaro Madonna (see fig.
19.15). The sun warms the columns and the splendid
fabrics, as well as the angel’s heads and the swooping putti
(recalling those in Titian’s Rape of Europa, see fig. 19.24)
who hold the Virgin’s crown and the saint’s palm. Veronese
emphasizes Catherine’s status as a princess by dressing her
in beautiful damask. His juxtaposed hues are at their
best in the pair of angels seated at the lower left-hand
corner; few passages in Venetian painting can rival the
white-and-gold brocade, green silk, and heavy orange
taffeta of their garments.

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19.51. PAOLO VERONESE. Marriage at Cana. 1563. Canvas, 21' 10" x 32'6" (6.7 x 10 m). The Louvre, Paris. Commissioned for the
refectory of the Benedictine Monastery of S. Giorgio Maggiore, Venice (see figs. 19.66-19.68).

19.52. PAOLO VERONESE. Feast in the House of Levi. 1573. Canvas, 18'3" x 42' (5.6 x 12.8 m). Accademia, Venice. Commissioned for the
refectory of the Dominican monastery of SS. Giovanni e Paolo; the patron was probably Andrea Buono, a friar at the monastery.

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19.53. PAOLO VERONESE. Mystical Marriage of St. Catherine . Probably 1570s. Canvas, 12'5" x 7'11"
(3.8 x 2.4 m). Accademia, Venice. Commissioned for the high altar of S. Caterina, Venice.

636

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One of Veronese’s most astonishing works is his dra-
matic Apotheosis of Venice , also known as Pax Veneta
(' Venetian Peace; figs. 19.54-19.55), on the ceiling of the
Hall of the Great Council in the Doge’s Palace. We look
upward at a great triumphal arch with spiral columns, in
front of which the sceptered figure of Venice is supported
on clouds. She is flanked by other allegorical figures and
enthroned between the towers of the Arsenale, from which

Venetian galleys sailed forth to dominate the seas (see fig.
15.56). Venetian citizens throng below, watching as Venice
is crowned by Victory and celebrated by Fame at the top,
with her trumpet. While Tintoretto’s late Last Supper took
us into a world of personal mysticism, Veronese’s compo-
sition leads to the Baroque and the ceiling painters of the
seventeenth century, who studied its principles and experi-
mented with the possibilities of its daring flight.

19.54. Hall of the Great Council, Doge’s Palace, Venice. The oval ceiling painting visible here is the H Apotheosis of Venice (Pax Veneta),
by Veronese and pupils (see fig. 19.55). The end wall painting is ft Paradise, by Tintoretto and pupils. 1585-90. Commissioned by the city
government of Venice after the great fire of 1577.

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19.55. PAOLO VERONESE and pupils. Apotheosis of Venice (see fig. 19.54). Probably 1585. Canvas, 29'8" x 19' (9 x 5.8 m).
ii Hall of the Great Council, Doge’s Palace, Venice.

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Jacopo Bassano

Jacopo dal Ponte (c. 1515-1592) was called Bassano after
the picturesque north Italian town where he was born and
died. He was part of a dynasty of painters that started with
his father, Francesco, who specialized in paintings of
peasant life, and later included Jacopo’s four sons. After
escaping the limited possibilities of his hometown for
Venice, Jacopo seems to have fallen under the influence of
both Titian and the courtly style being practiced in
Florence, perhaps through Francesco Salviati (see fig.
20.37), who visited Venice in 1536.

The popularity of Jacopo Bassano’s work in sixteenth-
century Venice proves that not all the republic’s citizens
were interested in the visual splendor offered by Titian and
Veronese. Bassano’s work emphasized a kind of rustic
naturalism in the details that may have seemed refreshing.
In his Adoration of the Magi (fig. 19.56), the attenuated
Virgin and magi radiate the princely splendor of the Venet-
ian society for whom Bassano painted, but the naturalistic
setting, the darkness of the encompassing shadows, and
the treatment of dogs, horses, and donkey immerse the
story’s protagonists in the real world. The rustic shed is a
standard motif in this scene, but Bassano emphasized the
unusually ragged forms of his creation by placing it against
a cloud-filled Venetian sky.

It was apparently a Venetian tradition for painters to
include portraits of each other in their compositions,
and just as Veronese included Bassano as a viol player
in his Marriage at Cana (see fig. 19.51), Bassano repre-
sented Titian as a money-changer in his Purification of the

19.56. JACOPO BASSANO. Adoration of the Magi. c. 1563-64.
Canvas, 37 x 46” (94 x 116.6 cm). Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

Temple (not illustrated) — a portrait that may be less
than complementary.

Michele Sanmicheli

Although Bramante’s classical tradition was continued in
the cities of northern Italy by several talented architects,
the Roman version of the High Renaissance style was
imported to the north only by artists who had experienced
the new grand manner in full operation in the Rome of
Julius II and Leo X. One of these was Michele Sanmicheli
(1484-1559), an architect from Verona who worked from
1509 to 1521 at the cathedral of Orvieto and who, in
1526, collaborated with Antonio da Sangallo the Younger
in a survey of papal fortifications. On his return to Verona
after the Sack of Rome in 1527, Sanmicheli began con-
structing fortifications ornamented with splendid Renais-
sance gates, and Renaissance palaces and churches that
transformed this Gothic city into one of the richest centers
of Renaissance architecture in northern Italy. While based
on the general principles of Bramante’s Palazzo Caprini
(see fig. 17.19), with a rusticated lower story and a
columned piano nobile , Sanmicheli’s Palazzo Bevilacqua
(fig. 19.57) and his other palaces are strikingly original

19.57. MICHELE SANMICHELI. Palazzo Bevilacqua, Verona,
c. 1532-33.

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and often include references to details of the Roman mon-
uments still standing in Verona.

As in the Roman palaces by Giulio Romano, the
ground-floor pilasters of the Palazzo Bevilacqua are rusti-
cated, but here they are so completely encased in heavy
blocks that only the capitals escape. On the piano nobile
large arches alternate with smaller ones surmounted by
pediments and rectangular attic windows. This combina-
tion of interlocked architectural motifs contrasts with
sculpted figures, heads, and garlands across the top of the
structure. While four of the eight columns have vertical
fluting, the other four have spiral fluting — a motif derived
from late Roman architecture but unusual in the Renais-

19.58. MICHELE SANMICHELI. Section of Pellegrini Chapel,
S. Bernardino, Verona. 1529-57. Engraving by B. Giuliari (from
La cappella della famiglia Pellegrini , Vefona, 1816). Chapel
commissioned by Margarita Pellegrini, who dedicated it to
St. Anne, patron saint of childbirth and mothers.

Margarita Pellegrini’s will of 1534 speaks of the chapel’s “most
perfect and most dignified beauty,” while a later will establishes
an endowment “so that a work of such superlative beauty may be
maintained in its laudable state and be decorously conserved.”

sance. Two run clockwise and two counterclockwise, and
they are arranged in pairs so that a clockwise example is
paired with a counterclockwise one. The overall effect is
one of disturbing complexity.

One of Sanmicheli’s most impressive works is the highly
ornamented Pellegrini Chapel (fig. 19.58), commissioned
by Margarita Pellegrini as a funerary chapel for herself and
her son, who died at the age of eighteen in 1528; her
daughter was subsequently buried there as well. Notice-
ably absent is Margarita’s husband, Benedetto Raimundi
de’ Guareschi, who was wealthy but of inferior social
status; his coat of arms, which was also that of their son,
is less important in the chapel’s decoration than the arms
of the Pellegrini. The scale and elaborate decoration of the
Pellegrini Chapel were clearly intended to establish the
continuing importance of Margarita’s family in Verona.
Documents reveal that Margarita, who was only one of a
number of Italian women who commissioned architectural
monuments in the later Cinquecento and early Seicento,
was an engaged patron and played a significant role in
advising Sanmicheli over the course of the three decades
needed to design and build the chapel. The centralized plan
features a vestibule that leads into a tall cylinder with three
niches containing altars beneath a coffered dome with a
lantern. The abundant decorative motifs (fig. 19.59), with
spirally fluted columns, rich garlands, balustrades, and

19.59. View of the dome and the stucco decoration of fig. 19.58.

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bold rosettes in the coffers of the dome, were based on
ancient Roman monuments that Sanmicheli had studied in
Rome and Verona.

Jacopo Sansovino

By virtue of its succession of palaces, the Grand Canal in
Venice is one of the most beautiful thoroughfares in
the world. Not one of its Renaissance palaces, however,
was built by an architect born in Venice. The tradition of
imported architects began in the Early Renaissance
with palaces designed and built by such Lombard archi-
tects as the Lombardo family and Mauro Codussi (see
figs. 15.57-15.59). The High Renaissance Venetian palace
was the invention of a Florentine, Jacopo Tatti
(1486-1570), who was called Sansovino after his teacher,
Andrea Sansovino, and who, before he came to Venice,
was active mostly as a sculptor. The magnificence and
authority of Jacopo’s classical style laid down the princi-
ples on which Venetian architecture would proceed for the
next two centuries.

When Sansovino arrived in Venice in 1527 after fleeing
the Sack of Rome, he brought with him the High Renais-
sance style of Bramante, Raphael, and Baldassare Peruzzi.

While Florence, with its narrow streets and its tradition of
fortress-palaces, could offer only limited opportunities to
an architect brought up on Roman columns, arches, and
balconies, Venice was free from such restrictions. The
lagoons protected the city, so public and private buildings
could exploit the advantages of light and air. Venetian
palaces in various styles, from the Romanesque-Byzantine
through the Gothic and Early Renaissance, present to the
Grand Canal a series of wide windows and superimposed
open arcades built of white limestone, their luminosity
imparting a special brilliance to the Venetian scene (see fig.
15.59). Here Sansovino’s Roman architectural heritage
could be allowed an almost ideal freedom of expression.

Sansovino’s Library of San Marco (fig. 19.60) was estab-
lished to shelter the manuscripts left to the republic by
Cardinal Bessarion, a Greek humanist and the patriarch of
Constantinople who became a Latin prelate. Sansovino
was apparently inspired in part by the ancient author
Pausanias’ description of the marble library of the Roman
emperor Hadrian. The writings of Vitruvius, whose archi-
tectural treatise was known in a Venetian edition of 1511.
may also have influenced the decision to situate the
reading room to face the morning light. Sansovino’s
ground-story arcade is in the Roman Doric order, based on

19.60. JACOPO SANSOVINO.
Library of S. Marco and Zecca,
Venice. Zecca 1536-45; library
begun 1537. Zecca commissioned
by the Council of Ten; library
commissioned by the Procurators
of St. Mark’s. The Zecca (far left)
was transformed by the addition
of a third story in 1558-66. In
1554 construction on the library
was interrupted, only to be
resumed after Sansovino’s death
in 1570 by his pupil Vincenzo
Scamozzi. Nonetheless, the work
was continued with fidelity to
Jacopo’s designs, and the library
stands as a unified monument.

HIGH AND LATE RENAISSANCE IN VENICE AND ON THE MAINLAND • 6 4 I

that of the Colosseum but with the addition of extensive
decoration: keystones are carved into alternating masks
and lions’ heads and recumbent figures fill the spandrels.
In the taller, Ionic second story, the engaged columns on
high bases, like the second-story columns of Bramante’s
Palazzo Caprini (see fig. 17.19), support an entablature
with a frieze of putti and garlands that hides a half-story
of mezzanine windows. Each arch is flanked by pairs of
fluted columns that are two-thirds the height of the smooth
larger columns. The pairing of these smaller columns in
depth creates an effect of plastic richness that is increased
by the figures of the spandrels and friezes. Verticals are
accented: at the corners are piers articulated by pilasters,
and the balustrade that crowns the structure is divided by
bases that support statues and obelisks thus prolonging the
line from the ground to the apex, with an effect compara-
ble to that of the pinnacles marking the divisions of Gothic
buildings. The open balustrade, statues, and obelisks
replace the traditional unbroken cornice that had been a
key feature in Renaissance design, and serve to dissolve the
top of the building as it confronts and incorporates the
Venetian sky. Other traditional boundaries are also dis-
solved: no walls are apparent on either story, only clusters
of columns and piers. The mass of the building encloses the
shadows of the ground-story portico and upper-story
windows. Palladio called the building “probably the

richest ever built from the days of the ancients up to now,”
and Pietro Aretino pronounced it “superior to envy.”

For the Mint of the Republic of Venice, the Zecca (fig.
19.60, far left), Sansovino created an effect of impreg-
nability by interrupting the columns with rusticated
bands — an idea derived from the Porta Maggiore, one of
the ancient city gates of Rome. The mint was originally
erected with two stories, but Sansovino had to add a pro-
tective third story required by the heat of the foundries.
The effect is imposing, and although some of the horizon-
tals continue those of the neighboring Library of San
Marco, the proportions of the Zecca are deliberately kept
separate from the library’s luxurious beauty.

The most highly decorated Renaissance structure in
Piazza San Marco was Sansovino’s Loggetta, a small porti-
coed and terraced structure attached to the base of the
Campanile (fig. 19.61). The delicate scale of the structure
is enhanced by the use of polychrome marble and smaller
than life-sized bronze sculptures. The name seems a mis-
nomer today until we realize that the central entrance and
flanking windows were originally open. Aretino reported
that this structure served, appropriately, as a casual
meeting place for the nobility of the city. Sansovino was
also responsible for the sculpture that decorates the
niches — a series of slender, elegant figures that represent
Apollo, Mercury, Pallas Athena, and Peace.

19.61. JACOPO SANSOVINO.
Loggetta at the base of the Campanile
of S. Marco, Venice. 1535-c. 1542.
Multicolored marble with bronze gate
and sculpture. Commissioned by the
Procurators of S. Marco. When the
Campanile collapsed in the early
twentieth century, it fortunately did
not seriously damage the Loggetta.

642

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Andrea Palladio

Andrea di Pietro (1508-1580) is known by the name Pal-
ladio — derived from Pallas Athena, goddess of wisdom —
bestowed by his patron, the humanist Giangiorgio
Trissino. Palladio was brought up in Vicenza, which he
turned into one of the most beautiful cities in Italy through
buildings designed in a new, more archaeological version
of the Renaissance style. Trissino took Palladio to Rome
with him, where the young architect studied the works of
the High Renaissance architects and the ruins of antiquity.
Palladio also mastered the writings of Vitruvius and
Alberti and made influential literary contributions of his
own, including The Antiquities of Rome (Uantichita di
Roma), printed in 1554, and The Four Books on Architec-
ture (I quattro libri delVarchitettura ), which appeared in

1570. In the latter, the virtus of Roman art, so important a
principle to Alberti (see p. 239), is applied to the architec-
tural problems — domestic, public, and religious — of Palla-
dio’s own day.

Palladio’s most influential building for the history of
domestic architecture is the Villa Almerico (fig. 19.62),
now known as the Villa Rotonda, a rural retreat sited on a
low hill near Vicenza. “The site is one of the most pleasing
and delightful that one could find ... because it enjoys the
most beautiful vistas on each side,” Palladio wrote, “some
of which are restricted, others more extensive, and yet
others which end at the horizon.” Like most of the villas
designed by Palladio, the building is organized around a
classical temple portico, but the Villa Rotonda is unique in
having four such porticoes, one facing each cardinal point
of the compass (fig. 19.63). Each commands a different

19.62. PALLADIO. Villa Almerico, now known as Villa Rotonda
or Villa Capra, Vicenza. Begun 1550. Completed by Vincenzo
Scamozzi. Commissioned by Paolo Almerico.

On the siting of a country villa, Palladio wrote:

It seems to me particularly relevant to discuss the site and location
to be chosen for those buildings and their planning; since we are
not (as is usually the case in towns) enclosed by fixed and
predetermined boundaries such as public walls and those of
neighbors, it is the business of the sensible architect to investigate
and assess a convenient and healthy location with the greatest care
and diligence, because we stay in the country mainly in the
summer when our bodies grow weak and sick because of the heat
even in the healthiest spots.

20yds

20m

19.63. Plan of fig. 19.62.

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view and enjoys different atmospheric qualities. Each is
protected on the sides by diaphragm walls that ward off
the sun but are pierced by an arch to admit ventilation; the
inhabitants could thus take advantage of an almost endless
variety of sun or shade, breeze or shelter. It is no wonder
that Palladio’s ideas were adopted with special enthusiasm
in the architecture of plantation mansions in the American
South, where protection against the sun was essential.

Each portico is reached by steps flanked by projecting
walls. On the corners of these walls and on each pediment,
statues extend the axes of the villa. Yet despite these
details, the effect of the villa is austere, with its flat walls,
severe Ionic columns, and undecorated frieze. It has been
demonstrated that, like many earlier architects, Palladio
used the numerical ratios of the harmonic relationships of
the Greek musical scales, known in theory during the
Renaissance, to calculate the proportional relationships in
and between the rooms in his villas. More elaborate
than those of Brunelleschi or Alberti, Palladio’s ratios are

not consciously discerned by the observer, but are respon-
sible for the effect of harmony and balance so evident in
his buildings.

The Villa Barbaro at Maser (figs. 19.64-1 9.65) was the
modest main building for a small working farm. The flank-
ing wings extending into the landscape, which influenced
Thomas Jefferson’s plan for his country estate at Monti-
cello, had a practical rather than a theoretical or ideologi-
cal basis. As at the Villa Rotonda, the main facade is based
on an ancient temple facade, but here the entablature is
unexpectedly broken by garlands decorating a large bal-
conied window that allows the patrons a view over pas-
tures and farmlands. The arcaded wings to either side
culminate in large sundials and structures that suggest
dovecotes. A semicircular nymphaeum behind the villa has
a spring-fed cascade, a fish pond, a grotto, fountains, and
extensive sculptural decoration. The water from this pond
originally flowed into the kitchen and then out to a series
of fountains in front of the villa, ending as irrigation for

19.64. PALLADIO. Facade, Villa Barbaro, Maser. 1550s.
Commissioned by Daniele and Marcantonio Barbaro as a rebuilding
of a family estate, some of the foundations of which were incorpo-
rated into Palladio’s design. Palladio seems to have become a member
of the Barbaro household staff, and when Daniele Barbaro died, his
will mentioned “Palladio, our architect.” For views of Veronese’s
decoration for the interior, see figs. 19.49-19.50.

644

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the farm’s orchards. Unfortunately, the extensive farm
gardens and orchards of the Villa Barbaro do not survive.

The elaborate sculptural decoration in stucco that adds
elegance and focus to the facade of Villa Barbaro was in
part designed and executed by Marcantonio Barbaro, who,
with Daniele Barbaro, was one of the villa’s patrons; a
main feature of the pedimental decoration is the Barbaro
coat of arms. The brothers were powerful Venetian aristo-
crats — Daniele a papal prelate and Marcantonio a promi-
nent statesman — with a strong interest in the arts. Daniele
authored an annotated edition of the writings of Vitruvius
published in 1556 with illustrations by Palladio, while
Marcantonio played a continuing role in Venetian building
and sculptural projects until his death in 1595. The
involvement of both brothers with architecture supports
the assertion that they collaborated with Palladio on
certain details of the villa’s design. In 1560-62 the painter
Veronese decorated the interior of the brothers’ villa
with a splendid set of trompe Voeil murals (see figs.
19.49-19.50).

Palladio’s few churches are milestones in architectural
history. His grandest interior is that of San Giorgio Mag-
giore (figs. 19.66-19.68, 19.47). The design is Albertian in

the sense that it is conceived in terms of a single giant order
flanking arches supported by a smaller order, but unlike
Alberti’s Sant’ Andrea in Mantua (see figs. 10.7-10.9),
San Giorgio Maggiore retains the traditional side aisles of
a basilica. The giant order consists of single engaged
columns, which at the corners of the crossing are paired
with giant pilasters. The inner order consists of smaller
pilasters, coupled in depth like the paired columns of
Sansovino’s Library of San Marco. The sculptural effect of
the interior is based on these combinations of flat and
rounded forms, and decoration is almost totally elimi-
nated. The convex frieze is devoid of ornament, the
columns and pilasters unfluted, and even the leaves of the
capitals simplified.

San Giorgio Maggiore was commenced in 1566. Palla-
dio did not live to see the facade completed, but his design,
which was followed by Vincenzo Scamozzi (fig. 19.68),
provided a new solution to the dilemma of how to devise
a classical facade for the difficult shape of a Christian
basilica, accommodating the difference in height between
the side aisles and the elevated nave. At Santa Maria
Novella (see fig. 10.6), Alberti had bridged the gap by
means of giant consoles. At Sant’ Andrea in Mantua (see

19.66. PALLADIO. Interior, S. Giorgio Maggiore, Venice. Begun 1566.
Commissioned by the monastery’s abbot, Andrea Pampuro da Asolo.

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HIGH AND LATE RENAISSANCE IN VENICE AND ON THE MAINLAND

fig. 10.7) — not actually a basilica — he had applied a tri-
umphal arch motif. Palladio amplified Alberti’s interpene-
trating orders on the Sant’Andrea facade into two
intersecting temples, one low and broad to accommodate
the side-aisle roofs, the other tall and slender to embrace

the lofty nave, the former articulated by pilasters, the latter
by engaged columns. It was an ingenious, harmonious, and
definitive solution.

Palladio did not live to see many of his designs completed.
His Olympian Theater at Vicenza (figs. 19.69-19.71) —

19.68. PALLADIO. Facade of S.
Giorgio Maggiore, Venice. Completed
by Vincenzo Scamozzi in 1610.

19.69. PALLADIO. Interior,

Olympian Theater, Vicenza. 1580-84.
The seating area and the proscenium
were designed by Palladio; Vincenzo
Scamozzi designed the permanent
stage setting. Commissioned by the
Accademia Olimpica, of which Palladio
was a member.

Palladio’s theater was in part inspired
by the ruins of the ancient Roman
theater in Vicenza and other Roman
theaters he had visited, as well as by
his study of Vitruvius’ comments on
ancient theaters. The inauguration
of the theater, in 1585, featured a
performance of Oedipus Rex by
Sophocles, translated into Italian and
complete with music composed for the
chorus by the organist of San Marco
in Venice. A letter written by Filippo
Pigafetta after attending the opening
production described the theater in
detail, concluding that every part
“seems worked by the hand of Mercury
and decorated by the Graces
themselves.”

646

THE CINQUECENTO

one of several Cinquecento attempts to re-create, usually in
temporary materials such as wood and stucco, the shape
and appearance of an ancient Roman theater. The build-
ing, intended for the production of contemporary and clas-
sical drama, is typical of the classicizing ideals of the elite
society for whom Palladio built. The stage is provided with
fixed scenery based on the ancient Roman scenae frons
designed by Scamozzi. But Scamozzi’s arrangement of
columns, statues, tabernacles, and reliefs follows no exact
ancient model. The three central openings lead into radiat-
ing streets that seemingly terminate at a vast distance from
the stage — an illusion created by a rising pavement and the
rapidly diminishing height of the buildings that line these
avenues. These streets, in fact only a few feet deep, rise up
as the rooftops descend; despite the magic of the illusion,
figures cannot penetrate deep into these spaces.

15 m
45 fi

Left : 19.70. Plan of
fig. 19.69.

19.71. VINCENZO SCAMOZZI. Permanent stage setting,
Olympian Theater, Vicenza.

Right: 19.72. ALESSANDRO VITTORIA. St. Jerome. 1 576(?).
Marble, height 5 1 6 V 2 ” (1.7 m). SS. Giovanni e Paolo, Venice.
Commissioned for the Scuola di S. Fantin, Venice.

Alessandro Vittoria

With its predominantly pictorial interests, Venice does not
seem to have encouraged sculptors. Almost every impor-
tant Italian Renaissance sculptor working in Venice in the
sixteenth century came from Tuscany, and all but two were
Florentines. Nonetheless, sculpture was needed in Venice,
as elsewhere, for tombs, altars, and exterior decoration.

The sculptor Alessandro Vittoria (1525-1608), who came
from Trento, in the Adige Valley north of the plain of the
Po, was clearly influenced by the innovators in painting.
His St. Jerome (fig. 19.72) demonstrates that he studied the
lessons of anatomy so important for Michelangelo and
central Italian artists, but his representation is also caught
up in the current of Counter-Reformation religiosity seen
in the late works of Titian and Tintoretto. The penitent
saint is represented as if withdrawn from the world in a
state of self-lacerating ecstasy. His lion is reduced to a
symbol and the sculptor concentrated on the swollen veins
in arms and hands, and, above all, on the look of terror at
the emptiness within. The complex pose of the almost nude
figura serpentinata reveals the impact of Michelangelo on
the Venetian artist. The widespread influence of the works
of Michelangelo for artists across the Italian peninsula will
be even more evident in the works discussed in Chapter 20.

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HIGH AND LATE RENAISSANCE IN VENICE AND ON THE MAINLAND

THE LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

A final paradox in Italian Renaissance art is
the coexistence of the energy, tension, and
emotional power of Michelangelo’s late
style and the elegance and refinement of
the style that flourished at the Medici court
in Florence in the second half of the Cinquecento under
Duke Cosimo I, who was installed as second duke of Flo-
rence in 1537 and who in 1569 became grand duke of
Tuscany. The artificiality and elaboration of this court style
became institutionalized in 1563 with the founding, under
the sponsorship of Duke Cosimo, of the Florentine
Academy, which soon played a significant role in control-
ling production and dictating artistic style. Duke Cosimo’s
court artists were required to glorify dynastic rule, court
society, and a prescribed version of religion. The formal
complexities of their art matched the allegorical conceits so
frequently found in their subject matter (see fig. 20.33).
Toward the end of the century, artists in Florence and else-
where began to move toward naturalism, signaling some of
the changes that led into the Baroque style of the seven-
teenth century (see figs. 20.46, 20.58).

Michelangelo after 1534

Although Michelangelo had been one of the founders of
the High Renaissance style, this had not prevented him
from devising inventions of a strikingly different sort in

Florence between 1516 and 1534 (see pp. 544-54).
Michelangelo never relaxed his republican principles,
although briefly, toward the end of his life, he entertained
the possibility of returning to Florence to work at the
duke’s court. Generally avoiding dynastic patrons except
when they promised the liberation of Florence, he worked
for the Church — at times without pay — and for himself.

The central monument of mid-Cinquecento painting in
Rome is Michelangelo’s Last Judgment (fig. 20.1). Early in
1534, Pope Clement VII discussed with Michelangelo a
new fresco for the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel; the
subject they considered has been tentatively identified as
the Resurrection. But Clement died that year, and the new
pope, Paul III, commissioned Michelangelo to paint the
Last Judgment. This penitential subject must have seemed
more appropriate at a time when Rome was still reeling
from the Sack of 1527 and the papacy was under attack
from the Protestants in the north. At the same time, critics
in the Italian cities were demanding greater fiscal responsi-
bility and moral behavior from those in power. Images of
justice and punishment, sacred and secular, had already
appeared on a grand scale in Italy (see figs. 18.31,
18.33-18.34, 18.65), but the dedication of the altar wall in
the pope’s private chapel to this theme indicates a new
sobriety and intensity.

Michelangelo’s panoramic vision of the subject meant
that the two windows on the altar wall had to be closed

Opposite: 20.1. MICHELANGELO. Last Judgment . 1536-41. Fresco, 48 x 44' (encompassing approx. 2,100 square feet or 190 square meters
of surface). Sistine Chapel, Vatican, Rome. Commissioned by Pope Paul III Farnese.

Th egiomata patches reveal that Michelangelo spent 449 days painting the fresco. At one point Michelangelo fell from the scaffolding, injuring his
leg. Some of the draperies painted in tempera over Michelangelo’s nude figures after his death were removed during restoration, but some were
retained, especially in cases where Michelangelo’s original plaster layer had been removed. The rectangular black patches (such as the one in the
upper-right corner) indicate the condition of the fresco before restoration.

THE LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY * 649

and Perugino’s frescoed altarpiece of the Assumption of
the Virgin and his Nativity and Finding of Moses , both
part of the fifteenth-century narrative program (see fig.
14.18), had to be destroyed. With them went four figures
of popes and Michelangelo’s lunettes representing the first
seven generations of the ancestry of Christ. Medieval Last
Judgments were usually hierarchical, compartmentalized
compositions in which all figures, including sometimes
even the resurrected dead, were dressed according to their
social position, and Christ, the Virgin, and the apostles
were enthroned in heaven. Instead, Michelangelo con-
ceived a grand unified scene without any break and
without thrones, insignias of rank, or, even, clothes. In a
huge clockwise motion, figures rise from their graves,
gather round the central figure of Christ, and sink down-
ward toward hell. The entire wall seems to dissolve as we
witness the dramatic events of judgment and punishment.

Michelangelo seems to have based his interpretation on
the vision of the Second Coming in Matthew 24:30-31:
“And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in
heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn,
and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of
heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send his
angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall
gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end
of heaven to the other.” The brilliant blue sky should be
interpreted as the fulfillment of Christ’s words a few verses
later: “Heaven and earth shall pass away.” Only enough
earth is shown to provide graves from which the dead can
crawl. Some corpses are well preserved, some are skele-
tons, in conformity with the tradition already seen in Sig-
norelli’s Orvieto frescoes (see fig. 14.37). The dead show
no joy in their resurrection, only dread of the judgment
taking place around them. Some are dazed, others hope-
less; a few look upward in awe. In opposition to those
soaring upward, others are fought over by angels who
want to lift them and demons intent on dragging them
down (fig. 20.2).

The nudity of most of the figures — so shocking to the
prudery of the Counter-Reformation that Michelangelo’s
pupil Daniele da Volterra was commissioned in 1565 to
paint drapery over offending details — is in harmony with
Michelangelo’s lifelong concern with the human figure.
Both the dead rising from their graves and the elect in
heaven are shown naked before Christ; for Michelangelo,
capturing the meaning of the theme was more important
than decorum. To help unify the scene, Michelangelo
increased the scale of the figures in the upper part of the
fresco, and all the figures are broader than those of the
Sistine Ceiling — the proportions heavier, the heads smaller,
and the modeling more vigorous. Michelangelo generally
omitted wings and haloes, perhaps because they seemed

20.2. MICHELANGELO. Damned Soul
Descending to Hell, detail of fig. 20.1.

hindrances to the expression of bodily perfection as he
understood it. Only their greater power and often startling
beauty distinguish the angels from ordinary mortals. The
dominant color is that of human flesh against a vivid blue
sky with a few touches of brilliant drapery that echo the
rich hues of the ceiling. The dead rising from their graves
still preserve the colors of the earth — dun, ocher, drab.

Christ is placed in the area best lit by the windows on
either side, and is even larger than the gigantic apostles
who surround him. Although his attention seems to be
occupied with the gesture of damnation — his right hand
held high as he turns to his left — his left hand is extended
gently, as if summoning the blessed up toward him. Instead
of the traditional mandorla, a subtle radiance extends
around him. This beardless, almost nude Christ is a
summation of Michelangelo’s new, more massive canon
of proportion.

The apostle Bartholomew, who was flayed alive, holds
up his own skin. It has been suggested that the face on this
skin is an anguished self-portrait of Michelangelo (fig.
20.3). Like his letters and poems, this self-expression

650

THE CINQUECENTO

20.3. MICHELANGELO. St. Bartholomew holding his flayed skin,
which may bear the features of Michelangelo, detail of fig. 20.1.

exposes the artist’s feelings of guilt and inadequacy:

I live for sin, dying to myself I live;

It is no longer my life, but that of sin:

My good by Heaven, my evil by myself was given me.

By my free will, of which I am deprived.

As the damned descend to their fate, a few struggle
against the angels who drive them from heaven; most,
however, seem resigned to the force of divine will. As a
child, Michelangelo must have contemplated the torments
of hell as depicted in a number of colossal works in Flo-
rence, including the Last Judgment in the Baptistery (see
fig. 2.9). He read Dante’s Inferno and he most likely knew
Giotto’s Last Judgment in Padua (see fig. 3.1). But in the
final analysis, it is surprising how little these works seem
to have influenced him. His version moves beyond physi-
cal torment or, indeed, physical experience of any sort.
Charon drives the damned from his boat into hell with an
oar, as Dante says he should, but the oar never touches a
body. The torments shown are spiritual, although grimac-
ing devils stare from the darkness of a hell mouth that
opens directly above the altar (fig. 20.4), warning the cel-
ebrant at Mass, often the pope himself, that he is in the
same mortal danger as all humanity.

The cleaning and restoration of the fresco between 1990
and 1994 revealed the unifying role of the blue sky; the
pigment used is ground lapis lazuli, which in the Renais-
sance was called ultramarine. It was expensive, but only

20.4. MICHELANGELO.
Demons in Hell, detail of
fig. 20.1. Restoration in the
1990s revealed that, while
the basic medium is fresco,
oil was used in areas of the
lower part of the painting
where Michelangelo wanted
metallic green and blue
tones that could not be
accomplished in fresco.

THE LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY * 651

20.5. MICHELANGELO.
Crucifixion of St. Peter . 1545-50.
Fresco, 20'4" x 22' (6.2 x 6.7 m).
Pauline Chapel, Vatican, Rome.
Commissioned by Pope Paul III
Farnese.

Technical examination of Michelan-
gelo’s two large Pauline Chapel
frescoes during the current restoration
campaign has revealed that each
is composed of approximately
85-90 giomate.

ultramarine could create this vivid effect. Documents
reveal that the pigment was apparently unavailable in
Rome and had to be purchased in Venice and Ferrara. The
differences between the outlines scratched freehand or
from cartoons into the plaster surface for some of the
figures and their subsequent painted forms reveal that
Michelangelo frequently changed his mind about details.

The figure in the lower right-hand corner with a serpent
wound around his body is supposedly a portrait of Biagio
da Cesena, a papal official who criticized the nudity of
Michelangelo’s figures after he had seen earlier portions of
the composition, stating that “such pictures were better
suited to a bathroom, or a roadside wine shop, than to a
chapel of a pope.” When Biagio complained to Pope Paul
III that Michelangelo had painted him in hell, the pontiff
replied that his authority, while encompassing heaven and
earth, did not extend into hell.

In 1542, still hounded by the heirs of Julius II to finish
the late pope’s tomb — the final, reduced version was not
dedicated until 1545 — the sixty-seven-year-old artist
climbed yet another scaffold to paint a chapel constructed
for Pope Paul III just outside the entrance to the Sistine
Chapel. Interrupted by illness and other commissions, he
worked spasmodically on flanking frescoes of the Cruci-

fixion of St. Peter and the Conversion of St. Paul (figs.
20.5-20.6). The Pauline Chapel was not completed until
the spring of 1550, several months after the pope’s death.

Against barren landscapes, the two scenes are staged
with cataclysmic violence. Saul, on the road to Damascus
— visible in the right background — to persecute Christians,
is struck down by a heavenly apparition and falls from his
terrified horse: “And suddenly there shined round about
him a light from heaven: And he fell to the earth, and
heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest
thou me?” (Acts 9:3-4). The vision is here fully corporeal.
A foreshortened Christ appears in the sky among angelic
platoons whose figures have been compressed into blocks,
their curves flattened into planes. As Christ moves down-
ward and outward, the foreshortened horse leaps upward
and inward, splitting Saul’s attendants into blocks of
figures. The dramatic figure of the blinded Saul — shortly to
become the apostle Paul — was clearly inspired by
Raphael’s blinded Heliodorus (see fig. 17.52). He falls
forward as if struck by a force emanating from the floating
Christ, and his face reflects both the blindness of Homer in
ancient busts of the poet and the agony of the ancient
Laocoon group (see fig. 17.3). Unexpectedly old (St. Paul
was a young man at the time of his conversion), the face

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20.6. MICHELANGELO.
Conversion of St. Paul . 1542—45.
Fresco, 20'4" x 22' (6.2 x 6.7 m).
Pauline Chapel, Vatican, Rome.
Commissioned by Pope Paul HI
Famese.

Cleaning has revealed the same
unexpected color juxtapositions seen
in the Sistine Chapel ceiling frescoes;
Saul’s purple garment and green tights,
for example, are set off by his red
cloak. Passages of the sky, the
landscape, and the Damascus
cityscape in the upper right were
rapidly brushed onto the plaster
surface, in contrast to the precision
with which the figures were executed.

with its snowy, two-tailed beard was probably intended to
suggest that of the patron (see Titian’s portrait, fig. 19.21).

The Crucifixion of St. Peter shows the elevation of
Peter’s cross, which forms a powerful diagonal across the
composition. Some of the foreground figures are cut off at
the waist or knee by the frame. Renaissance perspective is
abandoned and what should logically be behind is repre-
sented as above. The strange composition, with its figures
floating upward, culminates in an awestruck group silhou-
etted against distant promontories. They look down or at
each other with expressions of trancelike wonder that are
shared by the soldiers and executioners. Few figures are
shown in action, and contrapposto has disappeared almost
entirely, as have hatred, anger, and all emotions except for
awe and fear. Michelangelo’s figures express the trauma
experienced by those who are witnessing these events.

When he finished the frescoes, Michelangelo was
seventy-five. His general ill health prevented him from
undertaking monumental pictorial commissions, but he
could still carve stone and design buildings. At this time,
his architectural forms became grander and more richly
articulated, as if his sense of mass, which in his earlier art
had arisen from the human figure, could function on its
own in the abstract shapes of architecture. While continu-

ing his long-distance supervision of the details of the
Laurentian Library (see figs. 18.11-18.12), he undertook
projects begun by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger at the
Palazzo Farnese and St. Peter’s (see pp. 584-86).

We have seen the effect that Michelangelo’s central
window and colossal cornice had on Antonio’s facade at
the Palazzo Farnese (see fig. 18.57). In Antonio’s courtyard
Michelangelo intervened with revolutionary results (fig.
20.7). Antonio’s first story had been completed and
Michelangelo carried out Antonio’s second, Ionic story
with only minor changes. But in the third story he aban-
doned engaged columns, substituting pilasters on lofty
bases. Each pilaster is flanked by half-pilasters, and these
pilasters — the architectural counterpart of the clustered,
vibrating figures of Michelangelo’s pictorial and sculptural
compositions — introduce a new organic richness to the
static architectural elements designed by Antonio. This
new vitality was admired by seventeenth-century archi-
tects, and in a sense Michelangelo was helping to sow the
seeds of Baroque architecture. He achieved the same
quality of tension and inner life in his windows for the
third story, which have broken sills with pendant moldings
at the corners, fantastic consoles, lions’ heads, and broken
moldings inside arched pediments.

THE LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY * 653

20.7. ANTONIO DA SANGALLO
THE YOUNGER and
MICHELANGELO. Courtyard,
Palazzo Farnese, Rome. 1517—46 and
1547-50. Commissioned by
.Alessandro Farnese, who later became
Pope Paul III Farnese (see also figs.
18.57-18.59).

These bold, dramatic effects can be related to those
Michelangelo obtained in his articulation of the exterior of
St. Peter’s when he took charge of the project in 1547.
Antonio the Younger had continued the construction of
Bramante’s design; the piers and arches to support the
dome had been built and could not be changed in any
essential respect. A fresco by Vasari (see fig. 20.40) shows
the state of affairs in 1544: Bramante’s coupled pilasters
are already built and the barrel vaults of the transept still
have their wooden centering; Bramante’s temporary Doric
construction around the apse appears at the left, and at the
right a portion of the nave of the old Constantinian basil-
ica of St. Peter still stands. In the center, masons are laying
the stones of a feature Michelangelo particularly disliked:
a huge ambulatory added by Antonio that can be seen on
the plan being presented to the pope. These galleries and
loggie would have inflated the church to almost double its
already gigantic size. As Antonio’s model (fig. 20.8) shows,
the ambulatory would have supported a mezzanine and
Ionic second story of largely open arches with no obvious
purpose. An open gallery would have connected the main
building to an almost independent facade culminating in
two campanili as lofty as the dome.

Admittedly, Antonio’s design is fantastic. At no point
can the eye select a single dominant feature. Even the dome
has superimposed peristyles, and the ribbed shell (instead
of Bramante’s hemisphere; see fig. 17.11) is crushed
between the peristyles and the outsize lantern. Bramante’s
corner towers are converted into strange octagonal struc-
tures lit by oculi and bristling with obelisks.

Michelangelo wrote a devastating letter criticizing the
design as “ Germanic.” He pointed out that the loggie
would provide shelter for all kinds of crime, that it would
take an army of guards to clear them at nightfall, and that
in order to construct the ambulatories, whole sections
of the Vatican, including the Sistine and Pauline

20.8. ANTONIO DA SANGALLO THE YOUNGER. Model for
St. Peter’s on a scale 1:30, Vatican, Rome. 1539-46. Wood, originally
painted. Fabbrica di S. Pietro, Vatican, Rome. Commissioned by
Pope Paul III Farnese.

This is the largest extant model produced in the Renaissance in Italy.
It was constructed by Antonio Labacco and cost between 5,000 and
6,000 scudi.

654 * THE CINQUECENTO

20.9. MICHELANGELO. Plan of St. Peter’s,
Vatican, Rome. 1546-64. Michelangelo’s
work on St. Peter’s was commissioned by Pope
Paul III Famese. For Bramante’s original plan
for St. Peter’s, see figs. 17.11-17.13. For a view
of the interior as completed, see fig. 17.15.

chapels, would have to be demolished. Whoever departed
from Bramante, Michelangelo said, “departed from
the truth.” Fie then accepted the commission to
complete St. Peter’s not for pay but, as he said, for the
salvation of his soul. Michelangelo’s new, compact plan
revitalized the project. He eliminated the ambulatories
and the facade with its towers. He reinstated the Greek-
cross plan of Bramante (fig. 20.9; see also fig. 17.12),
albeit with only one entrance, and the unifying colossal
order on the exterior. In the interests of the stability of the
dome, however, Michelangelo also suppressed Bramante’s
smaller Greek crosses, substituting simpler domed spaces
(two exterior domes, built later, probably reflect Michelan-
gelo’s designs) and increasing the bulk of the piers.
Michelangelo’s facade was to have been a temple shape
of free-standing columns like that of the Pantheon, but in
this case subordinate to the crowning effect of the
elevated dome.

In order to unify the exterior (fig. 20.10), Michelangelo
used the Corinthian order as an embracing theme, with

20.10. MICHELANGELO. St. Peter’s, Vatican, Rome. View of back. 1546-64.

6 5 5

THE LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

paired Corinthian pilasters below and paired Corinthian
columns in the peristyle and lantern. He designed a Flo-
rentine ribbed dome instead of Bramante’s hemisphere (see
fig. 17.14), dividing it not by eight ribs as at the Florentine
Duomo, but by sixteen ribs, and even these are paired (fig.
20.11). Thus the entire structure, from the ground to the
sphere on the lantern, gives the impression of a colossal
monolith. To increase the effect of unity and density,
Michelangelo cut across the re-entrant angles of the
transept with diagonal masses. At his death the drum and
peristyle of the dome were still under construction. The

20.11. MICHELANGELO, GIACOMO DELLA PORTA,
LUIGI VANVITELLI. Model for half of the dome of St. Peter’s,
Vatican, Rome. 1558-61 with modifications in the late sixteenth
century by della Porta and the mid-eighteenth century by Vanvitelli.
Limewood, painted, height approximately 16'5" (5 m). Fabbrica di
S. Pietro, Vatican, Rome. Commissioned by Pope Paul III Farnese.

In Michelangelo’s original model the dome was more hemispherical.
Della Porta transformed the dome in both model and basilica by
making it more vertical. Vanvitelli’s changes were made when the
model was studied because of cracks developing in the dome proper;
he added the known cracks to the model and also incorporated his
ideas for strengthening the dome. The model thus reflects the
appearance of the dome today, not Michelangelo’s original plan.

final dome was heightened somewhat from Michelangelo’s
original design, which was closer to a hemisphere, but by
and large the effect of the building when seen from the
sides or back follows his intentions.

The unity Michelangelo had created overwhelms the
details, and the warfare between wall and column that had
reached a deadlock in his Medici Chapel and Laurentian
Library is here resolved; the column has at last won. While
the basic forms and spaces of the interior were decided by
Bramante, the plastic, sculptural effect of the interior
details are clearly the work of Michelangelo. They have,
however, been transformed by the seventeenth-century
addition of inlaid designs in colored marble and gold
mosaic (see fig. 17.15).

In summarizing Michelangelo’s contributions to St.
Peter’s, it is important to emphasize that he continued the
centralized plan devised by Bramante that made the dome
over the tomb of St. Peter the central feature of both exte-
rior and interior — an effect destroyed in both cases by the
nave added in the seventeenth century. While Bramante
had planned a lower dome based on that of the Pantheon,
Michelangelo chose a more vertical profile. Michelangelo
was also responsible for the details of the pilasters that
unify interior and exterior. The profiles of their bases and
their leafy capitals are both simple and extremely beauti-
ful. That the structure was designed by a sculptor is
evident in the vigorous forms of the exterior as seen from
the back: as the wall changes direction to define the apses
that surround the dome, the transitions create an effect of
dynamic movement on a monumental scale.

Michelangelo’s single but influential contribution to
civic design was his scheme to unify and decorate the
Capitoline Hill, a site that had symbolic value as the
religious and political center of ancient Rome (figs.
20.12-20.13). Against his will, in 1538 he moved the
Roman bronze equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius (see
fig. 1.4), then considered to be a portrait of Constantine,
to the central position in this piazza. He provided the
statue with an ovoid base and designed a double flight of
steps for the main entrance of the Palazzo Senatorio at
the back of the piazza. Michelangelo probably made
no further designs before 1561, when work on a
broader Capitoline project began. Certainly he was
responsible for the general idea of the later project, which
unifies the space with two facing palaces, the Palazzo dei
Conservatori and Palazzo Nuovo (fig. 20.14). They are
placed at a somewhat awkward angle to each other
because of the terrain and the need to incorporate pre-
existing structures, but Michelangelo’s design for the pave-
ment of the piazza uses a radiating pattern that disguises
the relationship, and as a result most visitors presume that
the buildings are parallel to each other. This is one of the

656

THE CINQUECENTO

20.12. MICHELANGELO. Campidoglio, Rome.
1538-64. Engraving by Etienne Duperac, 1569.

great examples of the imposition of Renaissance order.
The facades of the palazzi are, like St. Peter’s, unified by a
colossal Corinthian order with the same beautiful capitals
the artist had designed for the basilica. The Corinthian
order is contrasted with the smaller Ionic order that frames
the openings on the lower level. The use of a straight
entablature for the portico, rather than the by now
traditional arched arcade (see fig. 6.13), is a typical
Michelangelism. The balustrades and other decoration
along the roofline further emphasize the horizontality of
the facing palazzi.

In the artist’s last writings, death seemed always to be
near. But he was no longer dreaming of the mighty Creator,
nor even of the awesome Judge, but rather of the merciful
Redeemer. His drawings of Christ are dedicated to:

That Love divine

Which opened to embrace us

His arms upon the Cross.

Sometimes the figures of Mary and John the Evangelist
seem unable to bridge the gap that separates them from

* 657

THE LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

20.14. MICHELANGELO. Palazzo del
Conservatori, Campidoglio, Rome.

Begun 1563. The matching Palazzo
Nuovo was not completed until the
seventeenth century. Michelangelo’s
design for the pavement was not executed
until the Fascist era.

God, and they cry soundlessly in the void below the cross;
sometimes (fig. 20.15) the same shudder that pierces the
crucified Christ unites them with him as they embrace him,
pressing themselves against him, trying to merge their
being in his. Michelangelo’s eyesight was no longer clear,
his hand shook, and the contours tremble, but vague
though the shapes are, their masses are almost architec-
tural, and the misty figures are grouped into compositions
of a grand simplicity.

Two unfinished Pietas survive as sculptural witnesses of
Michelangelo’s inner life in his last years. One, carved
before 1555 (fig. 20.16), was meant for his own tomb. He
had already removed the left leg, apparently to replace it,
when, in a fit of desperation — he claimed the stone was too
hard and would not obey him, but doubtless there were
psychological reasons as well — he started to destroy the
work. He apparently smashed the group in several places
before his pupils stopped him. They pieced together the
breaks, but the leg to be replaced was never completed. In
spite of this gap, and the finishing of the Magdalen by a
pupil so that she now seems out of proportion with the
other figures, the effect of the group is immensely moving.
Rather than the traditional emphasis on the mourning of
the Virgin, the theme here becomes the power of death,
which seems to be drawing Christ downward into the
tomb with a force that the human figures are powerless to
prevent. Sinking with him are the Magdalen, the Virgin,
and a figure at the top who represents either Nicodemus,
who was present at the Crucifixion, or Joseph of Ari-
mathea, the rich man who allowed Christ to be buried in
his tomb. The features of this figure are Michelangelo’s
own. The difference between this gentle, meditative self-
image and the agonized one on the empty skin in the Last

20.15. MICHELANGELO. Crucifixion. 1550-60(?). Black chalk,
1 6 3 /s x 11 " (42 x 28 cm). British Museum, London.

658

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20.16. MICHELANGELO. Pieta, c. 1547-55. Marble, height 7'8
(2.33 m). Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Florence.

Judgment (see fig. 20.3) gives an insight into the final
period of Michelangelo’s life and art. Rough though the
unfinished surfaces of this Pieta may be, the emotional and
spiritual relationships and the power of the forms and
composition need no analysis.

Shortly before his death in February 1564, Michelangelo
began to work again on a Pieta that he had started ten
years or so earlier (fig. 20.17). It went through at least two
main stages. The original version consisted of the Virgin
holding the slender, dead Christ in her arms. But in a last
feverish burst of activity, Michelangelo cut away the head
and shoulders of Christ, leaving the right arm still hanging,
and began to fashion a new head out of the Virgin’s
shoulder and chest. Then he cut into the new heads, drawing
them even closer together. One has the feeling not that they

are sinking into the grave, but that the Virgin is standing
at its brink and that Christ floats almost weightlessly in
her arms.

Six days before his death, aged nearly eighty-nine,
Michelangelo was still working on the group. He fell ill
after exposure to the rain, and at first refused his
pupils’ counsel to go to bed. He eventually succumbed,
probably to pneumonia. In his will he consigned his soul to
God, his body to the earth, and his belongings to his
nearest relatives, and asked his friends to remember in his
death the death of Christ.

20.17. MICHELANGELO. Pieta . 1554-64. Marble, height 5 1 3 3 /s ”
(1.6 m). Castello Sforzesco, Milan. Intended by Michelangelo for his
own tomb.

• 6 5 9

THE LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

Art at the Medici Court

No such personalized and moving disclosures are evident
in the works of the artists working at the Medici court,
who believed that they stood, with Michelangelo, at the
highest point that art had achieved since antiquity. Vasari
wrote that he and his contemporaries had discovered the
perfect formulas for representing graceful figures and
features and creating beautiful compositions. Not surpris-
ingly, such formulas sometimes give their works a certain
similarity in composition and figure type. To Vasari, this
was an advantage because it sped up production — an
important consideration for a popular artist with many
patrons interested in large-scale commissions.

One's estimate of the work of the artists at the Floren-
tine court is a matter of personal taste and judgment, but
it is clear that by the middle of the Cinquecento in central
Italy, the Renaissance, in its etymological sense of
“rebirth,” was over. Michelangelesque, Raphaelesque, and
even Leonardesque forms lingered on and whole motifs are
sometimes borrowed, but it seems that artists no longer
experienced the excitement of discovery. Nature — the ulti-
mate reference point for Masaccio, Leonardo, and other
earlier artists — takes second place to refined inventions
and elegant patterns of representation. This style is
sometimes identified as the maniera — a term avoided
here because of the ongoing debate about its meaning
and extent.

Michelangelo is known to have planned a number of
sculptural reliefs for inclusion in the tomb of Julius II and
other projects, but scholars are uncertain about what their

style might have been because so few finished relief sculp-
tures by Michelangelo are known. Would the marble
panels for Julius’s tomb have been in low or high relief?
What might the bronze reliefs have looked like? What role
might reliefs from antiquity on prominent display in
Roman private collections have played in his ideas?

The extent of the ancient sculptural remains available to
central Italian artists is revealed in a view of the courtyard
of the palace of Cardinal Andrea della Valle in the 1530s
(fig. 20.18). Almost every available space is filled with
figures and reliefs, many of them fragmentary. We can only
imagine how artists of the period must have pored over
these works and those displayed in the Belvedere Palace
(see figs. 1.5, 17.3-17.4); the evidence of the impact of
such collections is preserved in the works that Renaissance
artists created under their inspiration.

A large, exquisitely carved, low-relief marble panel rep-
resenting Cosimo I as Patron of Pisa (fig. 20.19) by Pierino
da Vinci (probably 1521-1554) demonstrates the influence
of both ancient reliefs and the style of Michelangelo,
whom Pierino had met in Rome. The relief shows the duke
elevating a figure representing Pisa. With a general’s baton,
Cosimo drives away Pisa’s enemies, who are laden with
plunder. Behind him reclines the bearded River Arno,
doubtless derived from one of the river gods Michelangelo
planned for the Medici Chapel or one of the ancient figures
that had been Michelangelo’s models. This figure is a ref-
erence to Cosimo’s plans to deepen the Arno, rebuild the
port of Pisa, and connect it with a canal to the new port at
Livorno. Among the other allegorical figures, the Univer-
sity of Pisa, which Cosimo reorganized and re-established,

20.18. Ancient sculpture displayed in
the 1530s in the courtyard of Cardinal
Andrea della Valle (later known as
Palazzo Valle-Capranica), Rome,
as seen in an engraving made by
Heeronymus Cock in 1553 after a lost
drawing by M. van Heemskerck, who
was in Rome between 1532 and
1536-37. The cardinal died in 1534.
Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.

66 O * THE CINQUECENTO

is shown holding a great book. The polished Michelange-
lesque figures in low and still lower relief are defined with
linear perfection. In the left background a galley can be
seen, and the sculpture would, if finished, doubtless have
shown other vessels. The face of the figure in low relief on
the far left who looks out at us is the artist’s self-portrait.
The fact that Pierino’s large groups in the round are highly
dependent on Michelangelo’s Victory for Julius’s tomb (see
fig. 18.15) supports the suggestion that Michelangelo’s
marble reliefs might have looked like this.

A possibility for reliefs in bronze is suggested by the
work of another Michelangelo imitator, Vincenzo Danti
(1530-1576), who also produced groups inspired by the
Victory. His Moses and the Brazen Serpent (fig. 20.20)
suggests the hazy, sketchy style of Michelangelo’s compo-
sition drawings translated into bronze. The relief offers a

wide variety of projections and a free handling of detail so
that, as light moves over the bronze, there is a similar effect
to the chiaroscuro and floating contours of rapid drawing
in charcoal or chalk (see fig. 18.8). The composition is
based on Michelangelo’s spandrel for the Sistine Ceiling
(see fig. 17.39), but there Moses is relegated to the back-
ground. Danti, instead, has centered him and surrounded
him with the writhing figures of the children of Israel, the
men mostly nude, their poses borrowed from the Last
Judgment to display Danti’s knowledge of the works of
Michelangelo. The effect of distance is achieved by Danti’s
spontaneity in modeling the wax from which a mold was
made for the bronze cast. The suggestiveness and acciden-
tal effects of the model are preserved even in the figures
and drapery. As a result, Danti suggests less a historical
event than a vision of sudden healing and salvation.

Right: 20.19. PIERINO DA
VINCI. Cosimo I as Patron of
Pisa. 1549. Marble, 29 J /8 x 42"
(74 x 108 cm). Museo
Vaticano, Rome. Probably
commissioned by Luca Martini,
the Head of Cosimo’s Office of
Canals in Pisa.

20.20. VINCENZO DANTI. Moses and the Brazen Serpent. 1559. Bronze, 32 3 /s x 67 3 /4 n (82 x 172 cm).
Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence. Commissioned by Duke Cosimo de Medici.

THE LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

6 6 I

Benvenuto Cellini

Among the sculptors who found work in Florence under
the Medici rulers of the middle and later Cinqufecento, the
most familiar figure is Benvenuto Cellini 1500-I57I} S
partly because his vivid but untunjurlied 'autobiography is
still widely read. Cellini called Ibis autobiography his Vita,
following Vasari’s mode!, having begun it in 1558, when
Vasari was revising and expanding his own Vite. It is sig-
nificant that the firs* autobiography of modern times was
written by an artist* The self-interest we have seen in
works by ear her arosts reaches a culmination in this liter-
ary work, which seems intended to promote Cellini’s repu-
t*ati( >n u it h hi> contemporaries and guarantee his posterity.
Alter many years of activity as a goldsmith in Rome,
including hair-raising adventures during the Sack of 1527,

Cellini worked for a number of years in France in the
service of King Francis I. The king paid Cellini an annual
salary of 700 scudi (the same he had paid Leonardo da
Vinci;}* plus additional payments for each work produced
for the king. When Cellini later settled in Florence, he
attracted the attention of Duke Cosimo I.

Cellini’s gold and enamel container for salt and pepper
is the most famous example of Renaissance goldsmithery
(fig. 20.21). Although called a saltcellar, it was the rarity
and expense of pepper that explains this luxurious
example of tableware. Cellini tells us that he had five
workmen (two Italian, two French, and one German) to
help him with this and other artistic projects for King
Francis. His detailed description of the saltcellar’s subject
matter reveals the layers of meaning that even a small
object could express during the Renaissance:

20.21. BENVENUTO CELLINI. Saltcellar of King Francis I of France. 1540-43. Gold and enamel, IOV 2 x 13 Vs" (26.67 x 33.34 cm).
Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Based on a model originally prepared for Cardinal Ippolito d’Este; commissioned by King Francis I.
According to Cellini, the price was 1,000 scudi. In 1562 the saltcellar was almost melted down, but it escaped the fate that befell many examples
of Renaissance goldsmithery, including works by Cellini known only through the descriptions in his autobiography. The saltcellar is the only
major example of Cellini’s goldsmith work to survive. It was stolen from the museum in 2003 but was recovered, undamaged, in 2006.

662

THE CINQUECENTO

I represented the Sea and the Land, both seated, with their
legs intertwined just as some branches of the sea run into the
land and the land juts into the sea.... I had placed a trident
in the right hand of the Sea.... The water is represented with
its waves, and then it was beautifully enameled in its own
color.... The Land I had represented by a very handsome
woman ... entirely naked like her male partner. On a black
ebony base ... I had set four gold figures ... representing
Night, Day, Twilight, and Dawn. Besides these there were ...
the four chief winds, partly enameled and finished off as
exquisitely as can be imagined.

The figures of the Times of Day were inspired by
Michelangelo’s figures at the Medici Chapel at San
Lorenzo (see figs. 18.5-18.6, 18.10). Salt was placed in a
boat by the side of Sea, while pepper was served in a
covered triumphal arch beside Land. Motifs that refer to
the French king include the lilies on the cloth below Land,
an elephant, and Francis Fs personal emblem, a salaman-
der. The intertwining of figures and forms is typical of the
Florentine court style, as are the slender proportions of the
female figure, the rich materials, and the virtuosity of
detail and execution.

In his account of his presentation of the saltcellar to the
king, Cellini places himself at the center of events:

When I set [the saltcellar] before the King he gasped in
amazement and could not take his eyes off it. Then he
instructed me to take it back to my house, and said that in
due course he would let me know what I was to do with it.
I took it home, and at once invited some of my close
friends; and with them I dined very cheerfully, placing the
saltcellar in the middle of the table. We were the first to make
use of it.

In 1545 Duke Cosimo commissioned Cellini to make a
large sculpture of Perseus decapitating the Gorgon
Medusa, whose hair was composed of writhing snakes and
whose glance could turn a person to stone (fig. 20.22).
Owing to the difficulty of casting a group of this size in
bronze, this project occupied him until 1554.

The destination of the work — the Loggia della Signoria
(see fig. 2.41), where it would be paired with Donatello’s
Judith and Holofernes (see fig. 12.7) — led Cellini to estab-
lish parallels between the triumphant figures, the defeated
enemies, and even the cushions of their bases. (Icono-
graphically justifiable for Judith, such a cushion is hard to
understand for Perseus.) The modeling of the nude figure
demonstrates Cellini’s study of anatomy, while the play of
light on the surfaces and the number of viewpoints needed
to understand the composition (especially the twisted body
of Medusa under Perseus’ feet) are in the tradition of

20.22. BENVENUTO CELLINI. Perseus and Medusa. 1545-54.
Bronze with marble pedestal, height 18' (5.5 m) with base. It Loggia
dei Lanzi, Florence. Commissioned by Duke Cosimo de’ Medici.
Recently restored, the bronze statue has been returned to the Loggia
dei Lanzi (originally called the Loggia della Signoria), but the
marble base and its small bronze figures were replaced with copies
and the originals are in the Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence.
(See also fig. 2.41.)

THE LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY • 663

Michelangelo’s marble nudes. In contrast to Donatello’s
work, there is no attempt to evoke horror at the decapita-
tion; the perfection of workmanship, born of Cellini’s
training as a goldsmith, seems to pre-empt any possibility
of drama. The rich locks of Perseus’ hair, the writhing ser-
pents, and even the blood gushing from the neck of
Medusa are transformed into ornamental shapes similar to
those that animate the extravagant decoration of the
pedestal. Following Michelangelo's example in the Pieta in
St. Peter’s (see fig. 1 6.3 “i. Cellini placed his signature on a
strap crossing Perseus' breast.

In his autobiography Cellini explains the casting of the
Perseus and Medusa in detail, describing a number of dra-
matic events, including a fire that set the workshop ablaze
and a furnace explosion. At one point Cellini fell ill and
went to bed, but when the hot bronze refused to melt
properly he was awakened, and solved the problem by
throwing the household’s pewter plates and bowls into
the reluctant metal. Cellini reports that Cosimo I had
doubted his technical ability to complete this project.
When it was finished, Cellini told Cosimo: “I think I am
justified in saying that no other man on earth could have
produced my Perseus.”

In the same year that Cellini began the Perseus , he also
began a bust of Cosimo I (fig. 20.23). In its pedestal base
and curved lower outline, it follows the format of ancient
busts rather than the truncated form used for such por-
traits in the Quattrocento (see fig. 10.28). Cosimo’s armor,
with a fierce lion’s head decorating each shoulder, is based
on antique models as well. Other differences from Quat-
trocento models are the prestigious medium of bronze and
the new large scale: the duke is much larger than life. The
matte surface finish of the armor contrasts with the
smoother surfaces of cloth and flesh, while the stiffly held
head, rigid neck, and imperious gaze endow the duke with
an autocratic and even imperial presence. Similarly awe-
inspiring is the technical subtlety of Cellini’s casting and
chasing of the bronze, just as we have seen with his Salt-
cellar and Perseus. In the case of this bust, Cellini made a
tactical error, for he represented Cosimo as nervous and
rather belligerent, while Cosimo wanted to be thought of
as a peacemaker. The duke chose not to display Cellini’s
bust in Florence, but had it placed over the entrance of the
Medicean fort on the island of Elba, where it would have
reinforced the notion of Medicean power and control over
this distant outpost.

20.23. BENVENUTO CELLINI. Portrait of Grand Duke Cosimo de’ Medici. 1545-47. Bronze,
originally gilded, height 3’ 7" (1.1m). Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence.

Cellini wrote that he made this bust for his own personal satisfaction, but the nature of his character as
revealed in his autobiography suggests that it was surely made to draw Cosimo Ps attention to his work.

664

THE CINQUECENTO

TV w-

Ika'Il Hail

20.24. BARTOLOMMEO
AMMANATI. Fountain of
Neptune, c. 1560-75. Bronze and
marble. Piazza della Signoria,
Florence. Commissioned bv Duke
Cosimo de’ Medici.

Bartolommeo Ammanati

Duke Cosimo commissioned a marble and bronze
Fountain of Neptune (fig. 20.24) from Bartolommeo
Ammanati (1511-1592) to celebrate his plans to promote
the ports of Pisa and Livorno. Ammanati’s colossal marble
figure of Neptune surmounts four charging horses while
the edge of the basin, itself a fantasy of elegant forms and
motifs, is enlivened by figures of deities, fauns, and satyrs.
A sea nymph (fig. 20.25) on the fountain, probably exe-
cuted by an assistant using Ammanati’s model, gives an
insight into the relation of the Medici court artists to
Michelangelo. The nymph is derived from the Medici
Chapel Dawn (see fig. 18.10), but the differences are
readily apparent: where Michelangelo is tense, Ammanati
is relaxed; where Michelangelo is tragic, Ammanati is
serene. Michelangelo’s devices, including even the famous
pose of the figure “slipping off” the support, have been
ornamentalized. The motive is Michelangelesque, but the
drama is gone. This is true of much of Ammanati’s sculp-
ture and, as we shall see, of paintings by Vasari and
Alessandro Allori as well.

20.25. BARTOLOMMEO AMMANATI. Sea Nymph, detail of
fig. 20.24. Bronze, over-life-sized.

THE LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY • 665

The grandiosity of late Cinquecento architecture is well
represented in the courtyard of the Palazzo Pitti (fig.
20.26), added by Ammanati to the Quattrocento structure
(see fig. 10.12) after it was purchased in 1549 by Cosimo
for his duchess, Eleonora da Toledo. When the Medici
moved to the Palazzo Pitti in 1565, leaving behind their
former living quarters in the Florentine republican city
hall, the Palazzo dei Priori became known as their “old
palace” — “Palazzo Vecchio” — a name still used today.

Ammanati had worked in Venice under Jacopo Sanso-
vino, and he had the Zecca (see fig. 19.60) in mind when
designing the Pitti courtyard. In the palace, however, the
rustication embraces columns, walls, arches, and lintels.
Only capitals, bases, entablatures, and ornamental
window frames escape. And although the rusticated blocks
are rough in contrast to Sansovino’s smooth ones, they
have none of the rude, formless quality so disturbing in the
architecture of Giulio Romano (see fig. 18.63). On the
ground story (Tuscan) the blocks are rounded and con-
tiguous, on the second (Ionic) square and separated, on the
third (Corinthian) rounded and separated. For all its colos-
sal scale and seemingly rustic vigor, the courtyard is

ultimately ornamental. The window tabernacles of the
second story bear the same relationship to Michelangelo’s
originals in the vestibule of the Laurentian Library
(see fig. 18.11) as does Ammanati’s sea nymph to
Michelangelo’s Dawn .

Ammanati took his original designs for the Ponte Santa
Trinita (fig. 20.27) to Michelangelo shortly before the
latter’s death, and the older artist criticized and corrected
them. The soaring flight of the roadway over the river, the
tension of the three flattened arches below, and the potent
simplicity of the wedge-shaped pylons should be credited
to Michelangelo, even if some aspects of the design were
slightly changed by Ammanati. Ponte Santa Trinita was
blown up by the retreating Germans in 1944. When it was
rebuilt after the war, the original plans, discovered in the
Florentine archives, were used and the stone was taken
from the same quarry, located in the Boboli Gardens
behind the Palazzo Pitti. Many rank Ponte Santa Trinita
among the most beautiful bridges ever created; the
subtlety of its proportions and the soaring beauty of its
flattened arches are no surprise in the city of Brunelleschi
and Michelangelo.

20.26. BARTOLOMMEO AMMANATI. Courtyard, Palazzo Pitti,
Florence. 1558-70. Commissioned by Duke Cosimo de* Medici.

666

THE CINQUECENTO

20.27. BARTOLOMMEO AMMANATI and MICHELANGELO. Ponte Santa Trinita, Florence. Begun 1566 (rebuilt after 3345 .
Commissioned by Duke Cosimo de’ Medici.

Giovanni Bologna

The swan song of Late Renaissance 1 sculpture in Florence
was performed by a non-Italian who was active in Italy
for more than half a century. Jean Boulogne (1529-1608)
was born in Douai in Flanders but is generally known by
the Italianized versions of his name, Giovanni Bologna or
Giambologna. He rapidly absorbed a variety of Italian
influences, including those of Donatello, Ghiberti,
Verrocchio, Michelangelo, and the artists working at the
Florentine court.

Giambologna found ready employment with the Medici
of Florence. One of his most elegant and popular works
was a figure of Mercury (fig. 20.28) that was repeated in
several sizes. The example shown here is probably the one
commissioned by the Medici for presentation to the Holy
Roman Emperor Maximilian II in 1565; in 1580 the
Medici commissioned a large version for display at the
Villa Medici in Rome. The ancient messenger of the gods
is shown in mid-flight borne, apparently, on the tiny wings
that decorate his heels and cap. While Giambologna’s
understanding of the male nude body in vigorous move-
ment is demonstrated, a taste for refined elegance underlies
his depiction. The slenderness of the figure trumps its mus-
cularity, while the position of every limb and digit is
studied to produce an effect of light gracefulness, living is

20.28. GIOVANNI BOLOGNA. Mercury. 1565. Bronze, height
2 TV (62.7 cm). Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

* 6 6 /

THE LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

no effort for this god, it seems, for he has time to self-
consciously assume a pose in mid-air.

Giambologna added his own contributions to the statu-
ary of the Piazza della Signoria, including the Capture of
the Sabine Woman (figs. 20.29-20.30), placed by Grand
Duke Francesco I under the Loggia dei Lanzi (see fig. 2.41)
in the spot once occupied by Donatello's Judith and
Holofernes (the latter must have seemed too small after it
was paired with Cellini's Perseus). The subject, drawn
from ancient history, tells the story of how the settlers of
Rome raided the nearby Sabine population to capture
women they could marry. The theme is expressed by only
three figures: a Roman, a Sabine woman, and what is
apparently her protesting father. But the identification of
the subiect mattered so little to Giambologna that he had
called earlier versions of the same group Paris and Helen ,
Pluto and Proserpina , and Phineus and Andromeda. His
chief interest lay in the energy of the spiral movement
and the vitality of the male and female figures, and he

succeeded so well in their rendition that Baroque sculptors,
particularly Gianlorenzo Bernini, never forgot this group.
The Capture of the Sabine Women is also remarkable for
having been carved from a single block of marble — perhaps
the ultimate Renaissance demonstration of a skill praised
by Pliny the Elder in antiquity (see p. 193).

While we have seen an emphasis on demonstrating
invention and skill in earlier artists, a lack of interest in the
subject matter of a work is a relatively new phenomenon.
In this particular case, the content of the work was clearly
of more importance to the patron than to the artist, for the
placement of a large-scale sculpture representing this
theme in the public loggia, paired with Cellini’s Perseus ,
equated the idea of victory with the Medici patrons. The
function of the works might even be described as
apotropaic — threatening. This idea would have been rein-
forced by the presence of armed Medici soldiers in the
loggia, which became known as the Loggia dei Lanzi
because of their lances.

20.29, 20.30. GIOVANNI
BOLOGNA. Capture of the
Sabine Woman. 1581-82. Marble,
height 13’6" (4.1 m). m Loggia dei
Lanzi, Florence (see fig. 2.41).
Commissioned by Grand Duke
Cosimo I de’ Medici.

The work is signed OPVS
IOANNIS BOLONII FLANDRI
MDLXXXII. In 1579
Giambologna made a small bronze
group of this subject consisting of
two figures (height 39V8", 99.5
cm). The surviving studies for the
large marble group include a small
model of two figures in wax over
an armature of an iron nail (height
4 3 /V, 12.1 cm), a larger model in
red wax over an iron armature
(height I8V2", 47 cm), and,
amazingly, the full-sized clay group
from which he worked (now at the
Accademia in Florence, in the room
next to Michelangelo’s David).

The fact that these studies were
preserved may be equated with the
sixteenth-century movement to
preserve artists’ drawings.

6 6 8

THE CINQUECENTO

France, can be seen as a summary of the stylistic tendencies
and moral dilemmas of the age. Its intricate symbolism
continues to provoke scholarly interest and controversy;
divergent theories have identified the main theme as either
the Exposure of Luxury or Venus Disarming Cupid. The
bald, winged figure with the hourglass at the upper right is
almost certainly Time; he draws back a curtain to unveil a
scene that seems to represent incipient incest. Cupid rubs
against his mother, Venus, kissing her and squeezing her
nipple, while a putto (Jest or Folly?) pelts the shameless
pair with roses. At the lower left, Venus’ doves bill and
coo. The screaming figure at the left edge has been identi-
fied as an allegory of Jealousy, but another interpretation
posits that this figure represents Syphilis. To the right is a
monster with the face of a young girl, a serpent’s tail, and
the hind legs and claws of a lion. She carries a honeycomb
in one hand and a scorpionlike stinger in the other, and
probably represents Fraud, who lures but stings later.
While the choice of the main figures was surely based on
Cosimo’s knowledge of the king’s interest in erotic themes,
both the exposure of the group by Time and the stinger of
the deceptively beautiful girl seem to add an element of
moral condemnation. The difficulty in decoding the many
symbols reveals the sixteenth-century interest in icono-
graphic complexity and obscure detail. At the same

20.34. BRONZINO. Eleonora da
Toledo and Her Son, Giovanni . 1545.
Oil on panel, 45 V 4 x 37 3 /4" (115 x 96
cm). Uffizi Gallery, Florence.

This is a companion piece to Bronzino’s
Portrait of Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici
in Armor (not illustrated), which
features the symbol of a sprouting
laurel, a Medici family symbol (see
p. 324), to indicate that he will renew
the fortunes and power of the family.

time the painting demonstrates a kind of intellectual snob-
bery in the invention of motifs that are intentionally hard
to unravel.

Bronzino’s fanatic draftsmanship in the Allegory out-
lines every form, while the figure of Venus is modeled in
crystalline light. The different anatomies (male, female,
young, old), the pearls, the shining locks of hair, and the
glittering masks — symbols of Deceit in the lower right
corner — are all set against shimmering silks of piercing
green, blue, and violet. The picture was surely meant to
impress a foreign ruler with the tremendous skill of the
Florentine artistic tradition. The deliberate lasciviousness
of these nudes should be contrasted with Michelangelo’s
figures, who seem to come to us unclothed as if from the
mind of God. It is characteristic of the period that the same
society that could accept a private picture such as this also
added bits of drapery to many of the nudes in Michelan-
gelo’s Last Judgment; Michelangelo was even condemned
as salacious by Pietro Aretino, himself one of the most
scandalous figures of the age.

One of the most impressive of Bronzino’s portraits of the
Medici family is that of Cosimo’s wife, Eleonora, the
daughter of the Spanish viceroy of Naples, and their
second son, Giovanni (fig. 20.34); Eleonora’s portrait was
never painted with her daughters, indicating that this

THE LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY • 6 71

combination of duchess and male heir should be under-
stood as a dynastic icon. The cool detachment of the
figures conveys the restraint expected at the Me dice an
court. The brocade and jewelry, obvious symbols of rank
and wealth, allowed Bronzino to demonstrate his skill mi
representing texture and partem.

Bronzino decorated the walls and ceiling oi a chapel {.fig.
20.35) for Eleonora is die Palazzo dei Priori. The tech-
nique was unusual, tor the uiiderp&uitmg was in true

fresco and the finished layer in tempera. The combination
of complex figural compositions, rich colors, and elaborate
decorative motifs within the chapel’s small space creates a
he jeweled effect typical of the court of Cosimo and
Eleonora. The Crossing of the Red Sea (fig. 20.36) was
intended to recall Michelangelo’s Deluge (see fig. 17.25).
While this reference showed the artist’s knowledge of good
art, Bronzino did not repeat any of Michelangelo’s poses,
demonstrating instead that he could vary the vocabulary

20.35. BRONZINO. Altarpiece and frescoes in the Chapel of Eleonora da Toledo, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, c. 1540-45. Fresco and tempera,
size of chapel 16T" (4.9 m) deep x 1.2 1 7 " (3.8 m) wide.

The frescoes of the vault represent St. Michael, St. John the Evangelist, St. Jeromgj and St. Francis. The left- wall frescoes include Moses Striking
ti?e Rock (not visible) and The Gathering of Manna. For the right wall, see fig. 20.36. The altarpiece of the Lamentation seen here is a 1553 copy
by Bronzino; Duke Cosimo presented Bronzino’s original to a French cardinal as a diplomatic gift.

6j 2 * THE CINQUFCENTO

20.36. BRONZINO. Crossing of the Red Sea. c. 1540—45. Fresco. Chapel of Eleonora da Toledo, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence.

and improvise on a Michelangelesque theme. He tossed
figures about with abandon in the rising sea, along with
the floating baggage of Pharaoh’s army. The well-preserved
portions show muscular anatomies that, although lacking
Michelangelo’s energy, are rendered with all the precision
of Bronzino’s panel paintings and glow with the same cold,
pearly light.

Also characteristic of the Florentine court style are the
frescoes by Francesco Salviati (1510-1563) in the Palazzo
Sacchetti in Rome (fig. 20.37). Probably representing the
havoc wrought by the Ark of the Lord when carried off by
the Philistines (I Samuel 4:5-6), the frescoes simulate wall
paintings of different proportions and deliberately do not
harmonize with the shapes of the windows. All are
enclosed in fantastic and distinctive painted frames that are
intertwined with a jumble of garlands and apparently

sculptured figures. Under the helmet, jar, and vegetables
that dangle from one of the frames emerges Father Time,
his hands overlapping the simulated marble frame of the
lower windows as he steps from his pedestal, so that it
seems as if he is about to enter the space of the room.
Above the lower window frames, nudes languish in poses
of abandoned sensuality, one seen from the back, the other
from the front, on draped cloths that almost cover the tops
of the window frames. While the original inspiration for
such a combination of figures and framed paintings was
Michelangelo’s Sistine ceiling frescoes, Salviati’s intent was
clearly to astonish the viewer with added complexity and
unexpected juxtapositions. Nothing more contrary to the
principles of Renaissance harmony could be imagined,
yet all is done with exquisitely refined colors and drafts-
manly skill.

THE LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY • 673

20.37. FRANCESCO
SALVIATI. Fresco
decoration, c. 1553. Salone,
Palazzo Sacchetti, Rome.
Probably commissioned
by Cardinal Ricci da
Montepulciano.

Later Ceramic Production

The explorations that changed the world view of Euro-
peans during the later fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries
brought them into contact with new luxury goods. Porce-
lain, for example, was unknown in Europe until Chinese
examples — strong, pure white, highly glazed, somewhat
translucent vessels fired at a high temperature — were intro-
duced in the early years of the sixteenth century. It is no
surprise that Europeans prized such wares and wanted to
discover the secrets of Chinese production not only for
easier access to such fine objects but also for commercial
reasons. It was two centuries, however, before the first suc-
cessful European porcelain factories were established, in

Germany. The formula and process for making such porce-
lain had already been realized by scientists working at the
Medici court in Florence in the sixteenth century, but only
about sixty works were ever produced, most of which were
plates and platters. Apparently Francesco I, the Medici
ruler at the time, did not realize or was not interested in the
commercial potential of this discovery.

The design of the Ewer shown in figure 20.38 is attrib-
uted to the Florentine artist and architect Bernardo Buon-
talenti (1536-1608), who completed Vasari’s plans for the
Uffizi (see fig. 20.41). The winged grotesque masks that
join the handle to the ewer and the combinations of
dragons, putti , and rinceaux that cover the vase are among
the typical decorative motifs of sixteenth-century Italy,

674

THE CINQUECENTO

deriving from ancient Roman fresco decorations in the
Golden House of Nero and elsewhere. The influence of
Chinese porcelain is found in the stylized flowers in arches
that surround the base of the ewer.

The Ewer Basin with Europa and the Bull of c. 1565-75
(fig. 20.39) is an example not of porcelain but of the more
traditional tin-glazed earthenware produced in Italy (see
fig. 15.30), and demonstrates the new, more elegant
majolica designs of the second half of the sixteenth
century. The bold compositions with large-scale figures
that had been popular earlier (see fig. 17.75) have here
given way to smaller scenes, and the rest of the vessel is
adorned with the same grotesque decoration discussed
above. When the ewer (now lost) that was a part of
this ensemble was in place, the mythological subject,
taken from Ovid, would not even have been visible; deco-
ration in this case trumps iconography — yet another indi-
cation of the late sixteenth-century emphasis on style
over substance.

Above: 20.38. BERNARDO BUONTALENTI (design and
modeling attributed to). Ewer. c. 1575-78. Soft-paste porcelain
with underglaze blue and manganese decoration, height \AVi"
(36.8 cm). Institute of Arts, Detroit. The coat of arms celebrates
the marriage of Francesco I de’ Medici to Giovanna of Austria,
daughter of Ferdinand I and niece of the Holy Roman
Emperor Charles V.

20.39. Urbino workshop of the FONTANA family.

Ewer Basin with Europa and the Bull . c. 1565-75.
Tin-glazed earthenware, diameter 17 3 /4" (45.1 cm).
Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. The reverse of
this basin features similar decorative motifs with the scene
of Cadmus and the Dragon in the center roundel.

• 675

THE LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

Giorgio Vasari and the Studiolo

The artist who became the culminating figure in Medici
court art was Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574), whose biogra-
phies of artists and architects provide so much information
about this period. So successful was Vasari’s formula for
inventing figures and compositions, so slight his necessity
for further study from nature, so well disciplined his army
of assistants, that with their aid he was able to cover
numerous Florentine and Roman walls and ceilings with
frescoes and oil paintings. While these are often unreal and
pompous, they seldom lack decorative effect or historical
interest. Enormous altarpieces from his workshop line the
aisles of Santa Croce, Santa Maria Novella, and other
Florentine churches; vast battle scenes and decorative and
dynastic works fill the halls and smaller chambers of the
Palazzo dei Priori. His Paul III Farnese Directing the
Continuance of St Peter's (fig. 20.40), painted before
Michelangelo was appointed architect by the pope, forms
part of the decorations of the Cancelleria in Rome, a car-
dinal’s palace converted in the Cinquecento into offices for

the pontifical government. Vasari and his pupils painted
the frescoes lining the great hall in one hundred working
days; he boasted of this to Michelangelo, who replied, “Si
vede bene” (“So one sees”).

In Vasari’s fresco, Doric porticoes frame concave, semi-
circular steps based on Bramante’s design for the fountain
of the Vatican Belvedere. Paul III is followed by Renais-
sance architects, including Bramante, but his attendants are
allegorical figures in classical costume. The pope lifts one
Michelangelesque hand to point to the unfinished St. Peter’s
(see p. 656), while with the other he approves the plan of
Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, held up by figures who
are identified as the Arts of Design and Construction by
the tools that they hold or that lie on the steps below. At
the right the Tiber, his elbow and foot propped on books,
reclines on the steps, embracing the papal tiara and holding
an umbrella sheltering the papal crossed keys. The style is
elaborate and learned, with borrowings from Michelan-
gelo and Raphael. The emphasis on symbolism that is both
complex and obvious, perhaps even trite, is also typical of
the period. In the end, what seems odd is that Vasari’s taste

20.40. GIORGIO VASARI. Pope Paul III Farnese Directing the Continuance of St Peter’s, from a cycle of the life of Pope Paul III Farnese.
1544. Fresco. Great Hall, Palazzo della Cancelleria, Rome. Commissioned by Cardinal Alessandro Farnese.

676 •

THE CINQUECENTO

is so far removed from that of the Renaissance, about
which he knew more than any of his contemporaries.

Vasari’s most important architectural commission was
the Uffizi (“Offices”), a large structure commissioned by
Cosimo I to house the functions and records of his gov-
ernment and to impress Tuscans with the vastness of his
bureaucracy (fig. 20.41). By unifying the region’s adminis-
tration, the building expressed the political unity achieved
by Cosimo. Its four stories line three sides of a space that
is more like a street than a piazza, the grand scale and
urban presence expressing Medicean power. The Uffizi
derives its effect from the repetition of elements: paired
Tuscan columns between piers on the ground story, while
on the second story triplets of mezzanine windows alter-
nate with Michelangelesque consoles. The third story
again features triads of windows, and the open loggia of

20.41. GIORGIO VASARI. Uffizi, Florence. 1559-80s.

Completed by Bernardo Buontalenti and Alfonso Parigi.
Commissioned by Cosimo I de’ Medici.

The basic outlines of the plan may have been suggested to Vasari
by Cosimo I. The building initially housed the offices of the thirteen
administrative authorities of the Medicean state — a function revealed
in the piers that divide the loggie into distinct units with an entrance
door for each of the offices. The upper floor of the building now
houses the important art museum that includes treasures from the
Medici collections and many additional works.

the fourth (now enclosed) repeats the Tuscan columns of
the ground story. The only break in the uniformity* comes
at the end, where a central arch, framing a figure of
Grand Duke Cosimo de’ Medici, opens a vista toward the
Arno River.

Vasari’s structure incorporated existing buildings,
including private houses and almost the entire church of
San Piero Scheraggio, where Dante had spoken and many
important events of republican Florence had taken place.
The Uffizi’s facades mask the disparity of old and new
buildings evident when one looks at the structure from the
back. The huge complex, so rapidly remodeled, strung
together, and refaced, contained such extensive openings
and reached such a height that Vasari had to use steel
girders to reinforce it — one of the earliest known instances
of metal architecture.

Vasari may have been the most prolific Italian — perhaps
even European — artist of the sixteenth century. In addition
to architecture and painting, he designed festivals for the
Medici court that were noted for their iconographic com-
plexity, and marshaled and managed the forces needed to
produce floats and costumes quickly. He collected draw-
ings (see fig. 1.20), and designed woodcut frames and por-
traits for the second edition of the Lives (see fig. 18.37).

Vasari also played a key role, along with Vincenzo
Borghini, a leading intellectual of the period, in the
creation of a studiolo for Francesco I de’ Medici, son and
successor of Cosimo I (fig. 20.42). This tiny chamber
within the Palazzo dei Priori, accessible by a hidden spiral
staircase, was dedicated to organizing and displaying the
geological, mineralogical, and alchemical interests of this
self-centered and largely ineffectual ruler. Francesco dis-
mantled the studiolo in 1586, but the paintings and sculp-
tures survived and were remounted in the original space in
the twentieth century. The reconstruction lacks Francesco’s
large cabinet-desk, for which the room was named, and
the cabinets that displayed his treasures, and so only
approximates the original effect. The walls, each dedicated
to one of the four elements, were lined with two tiers of oil
paintings on slate or panel that acted as doors for cup-
boards containing Francesco’s scientific books, specimens,
and instruments. Two doors, not distinguished in any way
from the cupboard doors, covered the only windows:
Francesco preferred to work by candlelight. The intimate
scale of the project allowed Vasari and his pupils to
develop their imaginative abilities, technical skill, and a
jewel-like delicacy of color. Eight sculptors made bronze
statuettes, and the paintings, which include images of
Francesco’s parents, were by no fewer than twenty-three
artists. This precious chamber is the only sixteenth-century
room in Europe to survive with its oil paintings intact,
albeit reconstructed.

THE LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY * 677

20.42. GIORGIO VASARI and others. Studiolo. 1570-75; reconstructed, twentieth century. Oil paintings on slate, bronze statuettes, stucco
decoration with frescoes in the vault. Palazzo Vecchio, Florence. Commissioned by Francesco I de’ Medici.

678 •

THE CINQUECENTO

Vasari’s contributions include the Perseus and Androm-
eda (fig. 20.43). Legend states that when Perseus held up
the head of Medusa and plunged his sword into the dragon

that was about to attack Andromeda, the dragon turned to
stone and its blood, streaming through the water, turned
into coral. In the foreground Andromeda is chained to the

20.43. GIORGIO VASARI. Perseus and Andromeda. 1570-72. Oil on slate, 46 x 39V4" (117 x 100 cm), m Studiolo, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence.
Commissioned by Francesco I de’ Medici.

THE LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

679

rock while mermaids retrieve branches of coral. In the
background, stylized promontories sparkle with classical
buildings, and on the beach workmen draw the dragon
onto land with an enormous winch.

Just as toylike and unreal is the Pearl Fishers (fig. 20.44)
by Bronzino’s follower Alessandro Allori (1535-1607),
whose style imitates the cool, smooth manner of his
teacher. Exquisite male and female nudes, human and
mythological, play about on rocks, dive off boats, and
bring up shells overflowing with sea water and pearls.
Over and over the figures quote Michelangelo (the central
nude seen from the back comes straight out of the Battle of
Cascina\ see fig. 16.42), but only in the most playful
way. Another of Allori’s sources was Michelangelo’s
Deluge in the Sistine Chapel (see fig. 17.25), but the
traumas of the original are muted by Allori’s predomi-
nantly pink and blue coloring.

While most of the artists seem to have worked content-
edly in the Medici court style, three painters suggest the
possibility of reform: Santi di Tito (1536-1603) and
two painters hardly known outside the studiolo —
Mirabello Cavalori (1535-1572) and Girolamo Macchietti
(1535-1592). Cavalori and Macchietti were assigned or
selected subjects from daily life, and their depictions are

remarkable for their naturalism. Perhaps in an attempt to
make their paintings conform to their courtly setting, the
backgrounds have grand architectural settings featuring
the severe Tuscan order.

The devotion to naturalism in Cavalori’s Wool Factory
(fig. 20.45) cannot be paralleled, even in Lombardy.
Perhaps Cavalori made sketches in a wool factory, of
which there were many in Florence, for in his painting
people do what they are doing because they have to, not
because they are forced into artistic poses to reflect the
artist’s knowledge of the works of Michelangelo. Caval-
ori’s men are not nude to display the beauty of their
anatomy; they have stripped because they are hot, display-
ing far-from-ideal bodies wearing Cinquecento under-
shorts. In fact, the only “nudes” are those carrying
firewood, stuffing it into the flames, or churning the
masses of wool in the boiling caldron. Behind them a
wringer is being twisted, and at the top of the steps the
wool, wound on a huge spindle, is being carded. Cavalori
seems to have taken special pleasure in representing the felt
hats and peaked caps of the workmen. No abstract
scheme, either imposed upon the figures or derived from

20.44. ALESSANDRO ALLORI. Pearl Fishers. 1570-72. Oil
on slate, 45V2 x 34" (116 x 86 cm), m Studiolo, Palazzo Vecchio,
Florence. Commissioned by Francesco I de’ Medici.

20.45. MIRABELLO CAVALORI. Wool Factory. 1570-72. Oil
on slate, 50 x 35 7 /s" (127 x 91 cm), m Studiolo, Palazzo Vecchio,
Florence. Commissioned by Francesco I de’ Medici.

6 8 O

THE CINQUECENTO

them, unites their activities, but a strong side light gives
deep shadows, uniformly smooth brushwork suggests tex-
tures, and a hectic sense of hard labor under pressure is
expressed. We can see, feel, hear, and even, it seems, smell
the factory. Yet there is the grand architectural setting and,
in spite of everything, an effect of Renaissance nobility.
Grand Duke Francesco may have liked such proletarian
pictures as oddities, especially since the wealth of his
dominion still depended largely on wool. The Wool
Factory , however, was not the kind of picture calculated to
gain Cavalori lucrative public commissions.

Girolamo Macchietti’s Baths at Pozzuoli (fig. 20.46) is
similar to the Wool Factory in its naturalistic concept and
smooth pictorial style. One can hardly expect that these
hot-spring baths, not far from Naples, were set in archi-
tecture of such grandeur, and most likely Macchietti had
never seen them. He probably studied and sketched in the
Florentine public baths, as did Leonardo and Michelan-
gelo; the resemblance of the youth reclining on the steps
and the seated figure having his leg toweled to their coun-
terparts in Michelangelo’s Battle ofCascina (see fig. 16.42)
seem due not to imitation but to the fact that such poses
could be seen daily in any public bath. A statue of Asklepius,
god of health, presides over the scene from the left, but so

20.46. GIROLAMO MACCHIETTI. Baths at Pozzuoli. 1570-72.
Oil on slate, 46 x 39VV (117 x 100 cm). 1ft Studiolo, Palazzo Vecchio,
Florence. Commissioned by Francesco I de’ Medici.

unobtrusively that he almost seems to be one of the bathers.
Here, too, one feels the temperature as the figures in the
foreground stand happily in the warm, medicinal water.

Mavericks such as Cavalori and Macchietti were ahead
of their time, but in 1564 Vasari included them among the
painters selected to provide pictures for the catafalque to
solemnize Michelangelo’s funeral in San Lorenzo.

We have come full circle. From the moment of its con-
struction, the Palazzo dei Priori had been the home of the
Florentine Republic, and its simplicity and power had sym-
bolized the qualities of individual character so important
for the republic. Through two and a half centuries these
qualities, in crisis and in triumph, had inspired one of the
great periods in the history of human artistic imagination.
By 1530 the republic was over; and it is ironic that the
massive building, deprived of its original meaning, should
have provided the setting for an absolutist ruler who
divined secret mysteries by artificial light. In the works by
Cavalori and Macchietti, the Palazzo dei Priori became a
womb for the germination of a new vision of reality.

Developments Elsewhere

To conclude, we turn our attention to developments
outside of Florence, some of which can be related to the
Florentine court style and others that demonstrate new
interests that will lead into the seventeenth century.

Giuseppe Arcimboldo

Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1527?— 1593), born and trained in
Italy, found his greatest success in northern Europe, where
he worked for the Hapsburg emperors Ferdinand I, Maxi-
milian II, and Rudolf II. Like most Renaissance artists,
Arcimboldo was hired to design and/or produce many dif-
ferent kinds of objects, including oil paintings, frescoes,
stained-glass windows and tapestries, festivals and cos-
tumes, and an altar baldacchino. He was also commis-
sioned to purchase antiquities and unusual objects for the
emperors’ collections. Today he is known largely for a
remarkable series of fantastic, composite heads.

Fire (fig. 20.47), from a series of paintings representing
the Four Elements , is the most vivacious of the group
because of the vivid colors and apparently brisk movement
with which the flames have been painted. Other objects
related to fire are wittily incorporated: matches, a lighted
oil lamp, a long wick, and candles. Steel objects used for
striking sparks suggest nose and ear, while cannon and a
pistol form the torso. The other paintings in the Elements
series are Air , composed completely of birds; Water , with
fish, mollusks, and shellfish; and Earth , which features
four-legged mammals with the antlers of stags forming the

THE LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY * 6 8 I

20.47. GIUSEPPE
ARCIMBOLDO. Fire , from
The Four Elements. 1566. Panel,
26% x 20V (66.5x51 cm).
Kunsthistorisches Museum,
Vienna. Fire is signed with
Arcimboldo’s name and the
indication that he was Milanese
in origin.

hair. Arcimboldo also painted the Four Seasons , in which
Spring is composed entirely of flowers and Summer of
ripening grain. Other works include King Herod , com-
posed entirely of the bodies of babies; The Librarian , made
up of books; and a bowl of vegetables that becomes a head
when turned upside down.

Poems presented at court reveal that some of these
engaging paintings were intended as allegories on Haps-
burg imperial rule; the pendant on Fire’s chest, for
example, features the double-headed Hapsburg eagle.
When Arcimboldo represented Emperor Rudolf II as Ver-
tumnus , god of the seasons, he was suggesting that the
Elapsburg emperor not only ruled the seasons but, being
made up of roses, cabbage leaves, squash, cherries, grapes,
peaches, and ears of grain, he was the seasons. The natural
world exists to serve its rightful ruler. Despite the serious
underlying content, Arcimboldo’s witty and entertaining
paintings were admired in the sixteenth-century for the
same reasons we enjoy them today: as examples of a
remarkably creative talent. Arcimboldo continued to work

for the Hapsburgs after he returned to Milan in 1587, and
in 1592 he was rewarded with the title of Count Palatine.

Lavinia Fontana

Lavinia Fontana (1552-1614) was the daughter of the
painter Prospero Fontana, who had trained with a pupil of
Raphael and worked as an assistant to Vasari in Rome and
Florence. Lavinia, raised and trained in Bologna, studied
with her father and became a successful artist who worked
for several popes. She specialized in portraits and was the
first woman accepted into the prestigious Accademia di
San Luca, the organization of painters in Rome. Of her
self-portraits, one of the most interesting seems to be a
marriage portrait (fig. 20.48). While the empty easel refers
to her career as a painter, she showed herself as a musician,
playing a spinet while a servant holds the music. As impor-
tant as her accomplishments in art and music are the sug-
gestions of status, wealth, and personal dignity seen in her
pose, clothing, and jewelry, which confirm her success as a

682

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20.48. LAVINIA FONTANA. Self-Portrait at the Spinet . 1577. Oil
on canvas, 10 5 /s x 9 V 2 " (27 x 24 cm). Accademia di San Luca, Rome.
Sitting on the spinet is a piece of coral carved into the shape of a love
knot, a symbol of betrothal. The inscription on the painting,
“Lavinia, the unmarried daughter of Prospero Fontana, took this, her
image, from the mirror, 1577,” indicates that the painting was made
before Fontana’s marriage that same year to Giovan Paolo Zappi, a
fellow pupil in her father’s studio. They had eleven children, and it
is said that Zappi assisted Lavinia by painting the backgrounds and
costumes in some of her works.

20.49. LAVINIA FONTANA. Noli me tangere. 1581. Oil on
canvas, 31 V 2 x 25 3 /t" (80 x 65.5 cm). Uffizi Gallery, Florence.
By the seventeenth century this painting was in the collection
of Don Antonio de’ Medici, but there is no evidence that it was
commissioned by a member of the Medici family.

painter. In another painting now in the Medici self-portrait
collection in the Uffizi (not illustrated), Fontana painted
herself preparing to draw from some of the antiquities and
copies of antique works in her personal collection. The
emphasis on details of costume and rank in Fontana’s
works accords well with the courtly style of the later six-
teenth century.

Although her fame came as a portraitist, Fontana also
produced small paintings of religious subjects intended for
private devotion, as well as the occasional mythological
theme. Her Noli Me Tangere (“Touch Me Not”; fig. 20.49)
illustrates the scene when Mary Magdalen recognizes
Christ on Easter Sunday morning even though he is
dressed as a gardener. Because he has been resurrected he
asks her not to touch him in words that give this subject its
common name (Mark 16:9, John 20:17). In the back-
ground a glowing angel tells figures gathered at the tomb
that Christ has risen. While the carefully studied pose of

Christ conveys the elegance of the popular courtly style,
the Magdalen’s earnest effort to embrace Christ reveals
Fontana’s abilities in the representation of narrative.

Giacomo da Vignola and
Giacomo della Porta

Jacopo Barozzi (1507-1573), born in Vignola, near
Bologna, is known as Giacomo da Vignola. He started as
a painter under the tutelage of Sebastiano Serlio, the archi-
tect and perspective painter best known for his treatise
General Rules for Architecture (Regole generali di architet-
tura) and for his role in carrying the style of the Renais-
sance to France. Serlio had studied under Peruzzi in Rome,
and thus Vignola was brought into contact with High
Renaissance tradition before he arrived in Rome in 1530.
There he worked with Peruzzi and Antonio da Sangallo the

THE LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY * 683

20.50. GIACOMO
DA VIGNOLA.
Palazzo Farnese,
Caprarola. Begun
1559. Commissioned
by Cardinal Alessandro
Farnese, grandson of
Pope Paul III.

Younger in the Vatican and was employed in finishing the
Palazzo Farnese and, after 1564, St. Peter’s itself.

Vignola’s work reveals his desire to revive and codify the
Bramantesque tradition — an ambition not unusual for this
era of treatises and standardization. Instead of inventing
their own capitals, as had so many Quattrocento architects
and indeed Michelangelo himself, late sixteenth-century
architects were generally content with copying Bramante’s
capitals for St. Peter’s. But Vignola settled the course of
classical architecture for the next three and a half centuries
with his Rules for the Five Architectural Orders (Regole
delli cinque ordini di architettura ), first published in 1562
and reprinted in innumerable editions until the tradition of
classical architectural training died out in the twentieth
century. In this work, thirty-two illustrations established
principles for the design, proportions, and employment of
the orders then recognized — Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian,
and Composite — including shafts, capitals, bases, and
entablatures. All were based on ancient Roman models.

Neither experience in completing Michelangelo’s build-
ings nor collaboration with Vasari and Ammanati seems to
have had any effect on Vignola other than to reinforce his
classicism. His Palazzo Farnese at Caprarola is perhaps the
most overwhelming secular building of the Renaissance
because of the combination of its dimensions, its hilltop
site, and its grand proportions (fig. 20.50). Vignola was
faced with an unusual problem, for the commission
required the palazzo to be built atop a pre-existing pen-
tagonal fortress. It appears, however, to be square in plan,
which explains Michel de Montaigne’s 1581 comment that
it is “pentagonal in form, but looks like a pure rectangle.
Inside it is perfectly round.” The tension between the five
sides of the fortress pedestal and our expectation of four
for the palazzo is an unexpected source of pleasure in the
design. Vignola reinforced the angles of the fortress with

quoins and crowned it with a cornice and parapet. On the
lowest level, a rusticated entrance leads into service areas,
while balustraded ramps lead upward to a matching
entrance directly above, flanked by pedimented windows.
The corner bastions of the first two stories are continued,
still with quoins, in the upper stories. Between these
enframing corners a seven-bay order stretches across each

20.51. GIACOMO DA VIGNOLA. Courtyard, Palazzo Farnese,
Caprarola. Designed c. 1558-59, completed by 1579. Diameter
approx. 67'3 " (20 m). The barrel-vaulted portico that surrounds the
courtyard was decorated with forty-six frescoed coats of arms of the
Farnese and related families, and with busts of the first twelve Roman
emperors, whom the Farnese seem to have been claiming as ancestors.

684

THE CINQUECENTO

20.52. GIACOMO DA VIGNOLA.
Spiral staircase, Palazzo Famese,
Caprarola.

facade, with Ionic on the second story and Corinthian on
the third and fourth. On the main fagade at second-floor
level, a loggia (now enclosed) opens to a view over the sur-
rounding hills and valleys. Windows fill these bays on the
other sides. A pair of formal gardens in the back empha-
sizes the pentagonal form, following the geometrical plan
characteristic of Renaissance gardens.

Internally, the palazzo is set around a circular courtyard.
The idea of such a courtyard had been mentioned by
Alberti, who equated it with the round plans of some
ancient temples, and a small example had been built in
Mantua at the house of the painter Mantegna. In the
example at the Palazzo Farnese (fig. 20.51), rusticated
arches uphold a piano nobile of paired Ionic engaged
columns flanking arches, culminating in a balustrade with
urns that conceals the setback third story. The courtyard
thus appears as a revival, in circular form, of the two-story
scheme of Bramante’s Palazzo Caprini (see fig. 17.19). The
palazzo’s dramatic spiral staircase (fig. 20.52), composed
of paired Tuscan columns, recalls the spiral ramp built by
Bramante as part of the Vatican Belvedere.

Vignola is best known today for the interior of II Gesu
in Rome. The patron was the Jesuit order, for whom II

Gesu was the mother church. The commission, however,
was supported financially by the patron of the palazzo at
Caprarola, Cardinal Alessandro Farnese. Vignola’s plan
for II Gesu (figs. 20.53-20.54) is virtually identical to that
of Alberti’s Sant’ Andrea in Mantua (see fig. 10.8) except
that Vignola’s plan is even more compact because his
transepts are no deeper than the chapels that flank the

20.53. GIACOMO DA VIGNOLA and GIACOMO DELLA
PORTA. Facade and plan, II Gesu, Rome. Initial construction begun
1568, facade c. 1575-84, dedicated 1584. Commissioned by the
Jesuits with the support of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese.

* 68 5

THE LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

20.54. GIACOMO DA VIGNOLA. Interior, II Gesu, Rome, as seen in a painting by Andrea Sacchi and Jan Miel
(1639-41; Galleria d’Arte Antica, Rome). Begun 1568.

nave. Vignola and the Jesuits must have realized that the
interior of Alberti’s plan created the perfect Counter-
Reformation space: a unified area without distractions in
which complete attention could be focused on the ritual of
the Mass and the message of the priest. The result, grand
but simple, influenced later church design as the Jesuits
spread the message of the revived Catholic Church

throughout the world. Vignola submitted a design for the
facade of 11 Gesu, but the one offered by Giacomo della
Porta (c. 1533-1602) was chosen. Like Vignola’s interior,
della Porta’s facade (fig. 20.55) became the prototype for
later Baroque developments in Rome and elsewhere. The
articulation of the facade with pilasters, half-columns, and
pediments was clearly based on earlier Renaissance designs

68 6

THE CINQUECENTO

20.55. GIACOMO DELLA PORTA. Facade, II
Gesu, Rome. c. 1575-84. Travertine. Commissioned
by Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, who spent an
estimated 100,000 scudi on the building and
decoration of II Gesu.

(see figs. 18.3, 19.68), but he manipulated the traditional
elements in a sequence that builds towards a climax at the
central portal. The paired pilasters at the sides become
three as we move inward, and at the center those flanking
the doors become half columns. The broken cornice above
juts in and out to emphasize the three-dimensional rhythm.
This invitation to enter the church is enhanced by two bold
pediments, rounded above the pilasters and pointed over
the half-columns. On the upper story, another broken
cornice adds to the vigorous rhythm of della Porta’s
facade. The harmony of Renaissance architecture here
gives way to dramatic effects that will become more
pronounced in Counter-Reformation Roman architecture.
Despite its date, II Gesu has been called the first
Baroque church.

Federico Barocci

Ironically, the Emilian architect Vignola based his style on
that of Bramante of Urbino, while the painter Federico
Barocci (1526-1612) from Urbino dedicated much of his

life to reviving the inventions of the Emilian artist
Correggio. And as Vignola was, with the exception of
Michelangelo, the most powerful architect in central Italy
during the 1550s and 1560s, so Barocci was the most
significant painter in that region between Michelangelo’s
death in 1564 and the arrival in Rome of Caravaggio
and the Carracci in the 1590s. Barocci’s long career over-
lapped the beginnings of the Baroque style, and he appears
to have had a considerable effect on later painters, includ-
ing Rubens. Although Barocci was profoundly influenced
by the works of Correggio and the Venetian painters, we
are still uncertain where and under what circumstances he
saw their works. During two trips to Rome he studied
the work of Raphael and became friends with Federico
Zuccari, the leader of a refined Roman style based on Flo-
rentine developments. Barocci left Rome in 1563, in poor
health and with the suspicion that he had been poisoned,
presumably by a jealous rival. Thereafter, he seldom left his
mountain home at Urbino, where the classicism of his
illustrious forebears, Piero della Francesca, Bramante, and
Raphael, seems to have held little meaning for him.

THE LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY * 687

20.56. FEDERICO BAROC CI. Madonna del Popolo. 1575-79. Panel, 1T9 3 /8 M x 8 '3 V 4 " (3.6 x 2.5 m). Uffizi Gallery, Florence.
Commissioned by the Confraternity of the Misericordia, Arezzo.

68 8

THE CINQUECENTO

The influence of Correggio on Barocci’s mature work is
especially evident in his celebrated Madonna del Popolo
(fig. 20.56). Barocci emphasized the dramatic instant of
the Virgin’s intercession for her people before a loving
Christ. The scene is caught up in a bewitching fusion of
everyday experience with otherworldly rapture. In the
surging crowd below, an elegantly dressed mother tries to
interest her children in the heavenly apparition, but they
are attracted by the beggar in the foreground and the blind
player of the vielle — a popular four-stringed instrument
operated by a crank. At the extreme lower right a brown-
and-white puppy appeals to the spectator. With almost no
gap between earthly byplay and heavenly apparition, the
viewer looks up over the heads of mothers with baskets to
discover child-angels who support a beautiful Virgin, her
hands spread gracefully in appeal. Christ appears to bless
the crowd, while the dove of the Holy Spirit soars over
their heads. Light plays over figures, faces, and bright
garments as if through colored mists, while Correggiesque
smiles play across the faces. In the dissolving colors and
smiling charm of the subjects, we seem to have left the
solemnity and tensions of the late Cinquecento far behind.
Barocci’s excitement in his discoveries and his enthusiastic
study of color, movement, and light are a reminder of the
accomplishments of some earlier Renaissance artists.

Fede Galizia

Like Lavinia Fontana, Fede Galizia (1578-1630) was able
to receive training because she was the daughter of a
painter. She was born in Milan and spent most of her pro-
fessional career there. When she was twelve years old, an
important theorist and friend of her father wrote that
“[T]his girl dedicates herself to imitate our most extraor-
dinary art,” suggesting both that her accomplishment was
exceptional because of her gender and that imitation was
all that could be expected of her. Galizia, however, went on
to paint portraits and altarpieces, as well as a number of
highly detailed still-life paintings, a subject that was rela-
tively new to Italian art at this time.

Galizia’s Portrait of Paolo Morigia (fig. 20.57), painted
when she was eighteen, is unlike anything we have seen
before. The suave elegance and colorful fabrics we have come
to expect from north Italian portraits (see figs. 19.35-19.36)
are eclipsed by this apparently unidealized representation
of the seventy-one-year-old scholar and historian at work.
Simply dressed and surrounded by research books,
Morigia is represented looking up from writing verses
about Fede, whom he praised in his book on Milanese
society published the following year. He has removed his
glasses, allowing Galizia to demonstrate her ability to
paint remarkable reflections on convex lenses. The inscrip-

20.57. FEDE GALIZIA. Portrait of Paolo Morigia . 1596. Oil on
canvas, 34 5 /s x 3lVi8" (88 x 79 cm). Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan.

tion at the top denies the painting’s powerful illusion but
was surely added later. Galizia’s style is sharply linear and
her light is harsh and unflattering; we come away from
viewing the portrait as if we had just experienced an
encounter with a remarkable character. The intense detail
that we see here harks back to the late Quattrocento dis-
covery of the potential of oil paint (see figs. 13.32, 13.37)
and can also be related to the tradition of Lombard natu-
ralism (see figs. 5.21, 5.24). The realistic treatment of the
subject, however, looks forward to the emphasis on every-
day life that became important in seventeenth-century art.

Caravaggio

The Madonna di Loreto (fig. 20.58) by Caravaggio brings
our discussion of painting to a close. Two poor pilgrims,
possibly a mother and son, kneel at the shrine of the Holy
House of Loreto, the humble home of the Virgin Mary,
which was believed to have been brought to northern Italy
by angels in 1294 (see p. 378). The Virgin and Christ Child
appear and look down toward the devout pilgrims, and
Christ blesses them.

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1573-1610),
whose paintings are usually used to introduce Baroque art,
can also be understood as the heir of the Renaissance
developments we have been studying. The interest in

THE LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

689

naturalism that has been part of our story since the four-
teenth century explains both the solid weight of his figures,
which is emphasized by Caravaggio’s use of strong light,
and the subtlety with which he rendered details: the velvet
of the Madonna’s red garment, the soft hair of the Christ
Child, the broken plaster of her house, the dust on the
soles of the pilgrim’s feet. To achieve an effect of greater
immediacy for this vision, however, Caravaggio created an
intimate scene, avoiding the distant backgrounds found in
so many Renaissance paintings. He kept his life-sized
figures in the foreground so that the encounter between the

holy figures and the pilgrims is direct, almost as if they can
touch. The setting, while intended to be Loreto, is generic
enough to be any Italian doorway.

The slender proportions of the Madonna, the elegance
of her standing pose — the cult statue at the Holy House of
Loreto is a standing figure — and the refined gesture with
which she holds her heavy child can all be related to the
courtly manner of the late sixteenth century. They serve to
distinguish her from the sturdy worshippers, while
her simple garments, uncovered head, and bare feet estab-
lish a connection between the peasants and their vision.

20.58. CARAVAGGIO.
Madonna di Loreto, c. 1604-6.
8'6" x 4T1" (2.6 x 1.5 m).

1 Sant’Agostino, Rome.
Commissioned by the family of
Eremete Cavalletti, who was a
member of the Archconfraternity
of the Most Holy Trinity of the
Pilgrims and Convalescents, a
charitable group founded to
care for poor pilgrims who came
to Rome.

690

THE CINQUECENTO

The dusty feet of the pilgrim are set right at the beginning
of the pictorial space — a detail that challenges the tradi-
tions of grace and beauty that had been so important for
many Quattrocento and Cinquecento artists and patrons.

Caravaggio’s departure from Renaissance developments
is also evident when we compare his Madonna di Loreto
with earlier images in which human figures confront the
divine, such as Giotto’s Enrico Scrovegni at Padua (see fig.
3.14), the husband and wife in Masaccio’s Trinity (see fig.
8.21), or the male members of the Pesaro family in Titian’s
Madonna of the Pesaro Family (see fig. 19.15). In those
paintings, the human figures are well-to-do members of
society who are represented as specific individuals, reflect-
ing the Renaissance interest in the individual and the
concomitant development of portraiture. Caravaggio’s pil-
grims, on the other hand, are neither patrons nor identifi-
able people. They suggest the devotion of humanity in
general and that of pilgrims in particular. Like Masaccio’s
apostles (see figs. 8.9-8.10), they seem like familiar types.
We identify with them more easily than with the persons
shown in the earlier works. Since pilgrimage is a metaphor
for the individual search for salvation, Caravaggio’s depic-
tion was designed to touch each viewer. The painting is still
in situ in the chapel for which it was painted, in a church
located on the route taken by pilgrims on their way to St.
Peter’s Basilica. By placing these large-scale figures in an
intimate setting with the divine, Caravaggio demonstrated
the new respect for the poor that was important in early
seventeenth-century culture and art. His representation
supports the Counter-Reformation belief that the teachings
of the Catholic Church are available for everyone, not just
the elite and wealthy who were so often featured in the art
of the Renaissance.

Sixtus V and the Urban Plan
of Rome

Our final discussion demonstrates once again how Renais-
sance developments were inspired by the past while
looking toward the future. When Sixtus V was named
pope in 1585, he established an ambitious program of
restoring and renewing the city of Rome and its monu-
ments. A print made only four years later (fig. 20.59) sur-
rounds his portrait with buildings and places that had
already experienced his attention, including several that
have been discussed here.

Sixtus V’s most enduring work, however, is suggested by
the obelisks seen in the upper corners of the print. Although
several of the pope’s predecessors had tried to reform the
plan of Rome by establishing new streets, Sixtus’s vision
went much further and still plays a role in the visitor’s

experience of Rome. He established a series of new straight
streets that lead from Rome’s northern portal across the
urban fabric to climax at two important pilgrimage sites,
Santa Maria Maggiore and Santa Croce in Gerusalemme.
To mark intersections and monuments, Sixtus moved some
of the ancient Egyptian obelisks brought to Rome in
ancient times so that they became visual guides in this
urban scheme. The pope’s decision to reuse these obelisks
as focal points for roads leading to important Christian
sites was yet another indication of how the Church appro-
priated the world of antiquity for its own purposes.

Although Sixtus was planning for the short term, in
expectation of the pilgrims who would visit Rome for the
Jubilee of 1600, these obelisks continue to function as he
envisioned them. One of the streets he created took Sixtus’
given name, Felice Peretti. It is tempting to interpret the
name of Via Felice broadly, since felice in Italian means
“happy” or “blessed.” On the one hand, Via Felice might
refer to the joy the pope’s contemporaries must have felt at
the efficiency offered by his new urban plan. But felice
might also be an appropriate term to encapsulate our expe-
rience of the study of Italian Renaissance art.

20.59. GIOVANNI PINADELLO. Sixtus V and His Roman Building
Projects . 1589. Etching. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

THE LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY * 69 I

GLOSSARY

This glossary is limited to the most frequently used terms. Cross-references
are indicated by the use of SMALL CAPITALS.

AEDICULE (or AEDICULA) ipl. AEDICULAEi. In architecture, a
frame around a window, dooi; or niche decorated in a classicizing manner,
with COLUMNS, ENTABLATURE, and PEDIMENT, as seen in the
windows of the Palazzo Famese <fig. 18.5~).

ALTARPIECE. A painted or sculpted religious image that stands upon
and at the back of an altar; for a ty pical example, see Orcagna’s altarpiece
(fig. 5.3). An altarpiece may depict the CRUCIFIXION, the Virgin and
Child, and/or various saints, including the saint to whom the particular
church or altar is dedicated. In certain periods they include decorated gables
and PINNACLES, as well as a PREDELLA. See also MAESTA.

A M B L'L ATO RY. A passageway surrounding the high altar of a church,
usual!) \aulted; see Brunelleschi’s Santo Spirito (fig. 6.19). Ambulatories are
also used for the covered colonnaded or arcaded walkways around open
courtyards — for example, in a cloister; see the plan of Santa Croce (fig.
2.37).

ANNUNCIATION. The announcement by the angel Gabriel to the
Virgin Mary of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ (Luke 1:26-38). In many rep-
resentations of this scene a dove appears, to indicate that the Virgin has con-
ceived by the Holy Spirit and will bear the Son of God: see the examples by
Ghiberti, Fra Angelico, and Lorenzo Lotto (figs. 7.5, 9.1, 19.1). The Annun-
ciation to the Shepherds is the scene in which angels announce to shepherds
the birth of Christ (Luke 2:8-14); see the example by Taddeo Gaddi (fig.
3.30).

APOCALYPSE. The Book of Revelation, the last book of the New Tes-
tament, in which St. John narrates the visions he experienced on the island
of Patmos. A major source of iconography for Last Judgment scenes, as in
figures 2.9, 3.1, 4.36, 20.1.

APOCRYPHA. A group of writings once included in versions of the
Bible, but now generally excluded. The scene of the two midwives bathing
Christ in Nicola Pisano’s Annunciation , Nativity , and Annunciation to
the Shepherds (fig. 2.20) is drawn from apocryphal sources, as is Filippino
Lippi’s scene of St. Philip Exorcising the Demon in the Temple of Mars
in the Strozzi Chapel in Santa Maria Novella in Florence (fig. 13.34).
APSE. A large semicircular or polygonal niche, as seen in Leonardo’s
drawing of churches (fig. 16.8), at Santa Maria della Consolazione in Todi
(fig. 17.16), and behind the Virgin in Domenico Veneziano’s St. Lucy altar-
piece (fig. 11 . 8 ).

ARCADE. A series of ARCHES with their supporting COLUMNS or
PIERS, as in the courtyard of the Palazzo Ducale at Urbino (fig. 14.29).
ARCH. A means of construction in which an opening, usually semicircu-
lar, is spanned by a series of wedge-shaped elements. It is supported from
below by walls, PIERS, or COLUMNS, and by BUTTRESSING at the sides;
see the courtyard of the Palazzo Ducale at Urbino (fig. 14.29).
ARCHITRAVE. The LINTEL and the lowest part of an ENTABLA-
TURE; see Bramante’s Tempietto (fig. 17.9).

ARRICCIO . The relatively coarse plaster that forms the first layer
applied to a wall in the making of a FRESCO; see figure 1.15.

ARTE (pi. ARTI). See GUILDS.

ARTS, LIBERAL. The seven Liberal Arts, derived from the curriculum
for secular learning during the Middle Ages, are grammar, rhetoric, logic,
arithmetic, music, geometry, and astronomy. They were frequently repre-
sented allegorically during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance; see Pol-
laiuolo’s tomb of Pope Sixtus IV (fig. 13.10).

ARTS, MECHANICAL. Practical occupations that involved working
with the hands. During the Middle Ages, the Mechanical Arts included
painting, sculpture, and architecture. Contrasted to the ARTS, LIBERAL.

A SECCO. See FRESCO.

ASCENSION. The ascent of Christ into heaven, as witnessed by his dis-
ciples forty days after the RESURRECTION (Luke 24:51 and Acts of the
Apostles 1:9-12). This subject formed part of the narrative cycles at Giotto’s
Arena Chapel (fig. 3.4), Andrea da Firenze’s Chapter House frescoes at Santa
Maria Novella (fig. 5.8), and Ghiberti’s first set of Baptistery doors (fig. 7.4).
ASSUMPTION. The ascent of the Virgin Mary to heaven after her death
and burial when, according to Roman Catholic belief, her soul was reunited
with her body; see the examples by Correggio (fig. 18.44) and Titian (fig.
19.10).

ATTIC STORY. An extra story that appears above the ENTABLA-
TURE; see the exterior view of Michelangelo’s design for St. Peter’s in Rome
(fig. 20 . 10 ).

AUGUSTINIAN ORDERS. There were a number of religious con-
gregations that followed the rule of St. Augustine; the two main branches
include the Augustinian Canons and the Augustinian Hermits. The follow-
ers of Augustine usually wore black robes, as seen in Simone Martini’s altar-
piece of The Blessed Agostino Novello (fig. 4.18).

AVELLO (pi. AVELLI). Italian word for tomb, generally used by art his-
torians to refer to a tomb surmounted by a Gothic arch. Avelli were often
built into an opening between two chapels or as a series in a wall, as across
the facade of Santa Maria Novella (fig. 10.6).

BALD AC CHINO . A canopy, usually placed over an altar or over the
reserved sacrament; see figure 6.18.

BALUSTER. A cylindrical or more elaborately shaped decorative
element or support, often used in a series on a balcony or staircase railing;
see Castagno’s Niccold da Tolentino tomb (fig. 11.18) or Bramante’s Tem-
pietto (fig. 17.9).

BARREL VAULT. A semicylindrical VAULT; see the barrel vaults sur-
mounting the NAVE and side chapels of Alberti’s Sant’ Andrea in Mantua
(fig. 10.9).

BASE. The lowest element of a COLUMN, wall, or DOME, occasionally
of a statue; see the base of the column in Piero della Francesca’s Annuncia-
tion (fig. 11.27) or the elaborately worked base of Cellini’s statue of Perseus
(fig. 20 . 22 ).

BASILICA. A general term applied to any church that, like Early Christ-
ian basilicas, has a longitudinal NAVE that terminates in an APSE and is
flanked by SIDE AISLES; see figures 6.14, 6.17-6.19.

BAY. An individual unit of space defined by COLUMNS or PIERS and
VAULTS in a vaulted structural system; the term also refers to the vertical
definitions of these same units on the exterior or interior surfaces of a build-
ing, as indicated by such elements as BUTTRESSES and COLUMNS. The
individual bays are evident in the plan of Brunelleschi’s Santo Spirito (fig.
6.19).

BE ATO (fern. BEATA). Italian word for “blessed.” Specifically, beatifica-
tion is a papal decree that declares a deceased person to be in the enjoyment
of heavenly bliss ( beatus ) and grants a form of veneration to him or her. It
is usually a step toward canonization. The painter who in English is called
Fra Angelico was in Italian called Beato Angelico, even though he was not
beatified until the twentieth century.

BENEDICTINE ORDER. Founded by St. Benedict of Nursia (c.
480-c. 543) at Subiaco near Rome, the Benedictine rule spread
to England and much of Western Europe in the next two centuries.
Less austere than other early ORDERS, the Benedictines divided their hours
between religious worship, reading, and work, generally either educational
or agricultural.

BIRETTA. The square cap worn by ecclesiastics, that of priests being
black, bishops purple, and cardinals red; see Raphael’s Pope Leo X with
Cardinals Giulio de ’ Medici and Luigi de’ Rossi (fig. 17.56).

692 • GLOSSARY

BLIND ARCADE. A closed ARCADE, as above the entrance door of
Codussi’s San Zaccaria (fig. 15.57).

BOLE. The red pigment used as a glue to adhere gold leaf to the plaster
surface in panel painting. If the gold on a painting was thin or has been
rubbed, the bole may be visible, as it is near the top of Duccio’s Entry into
Jerusalem (fig. 4.10).

BOTTEGA. Italian for “shop,” used to describe both the group of assis-
tants who worked with an artist and the place where they worked.
BRACCIO (pi. BRACCIA). Italian for “arm.” A unit of linear measure-
ment used in many Italian centers, but varying from place to place; in Florence
a braccio was approximately 1.913 modern feet (58.3 cm).

BROKEN CORNICE. Term used to describe the sections of a
CORNICE or ENTABLATURE that are not continuous. For an example in
which the cornice juts forward and backward in space, see the facade of II
Gesu in Rome (fig. 20.55).

BURIN. The pointed tool used to create ENGRAVINGS. The V-shaped
point of the burin is forced along the surface of the copperplate, thus
expelling the copper to create a sharply defined groove. For engravings, see
the examples by Pollaiuolo (fig. 13.5) and Mantegna (fig. 15.28).

BURR. The rough areas of copper left along a scratch made in a copper-
plate by a DRYPOINT NEEDLE. When the plate is inked and printed, these
areas create blurred lines. Artists sometimes used this technique to create a
less linear effect; see the engraving by Mantegna (fig. 15.28).
BUTTRESS. A masonry support that counteracts the outward thrust of
an ARCH or VAULT; diagonal buttresses are visible in the exterior view of
Florence Cathedral (fig. 6.7).

CALVARY. See GOLGOTHA.

CAMALDOLITE ORDER. An independent branch of the BENE-
DICTINE ORDER founded by St. Romuald to establish the Eastern eremitic
(solitary) form of monasticism in the West. St. Romuald was born in Ravenna
about 950 and died in 1027. The painter known as Lorenzo Monaco (see pp.
144-148) was a member of the Camaldolites, and Brunelleschi’s church of
Santa Maria degli Angeli (fig. 6.20) was intended for this order.
CAMPANILE. From the Italian word campana (“bell”). A bell tower either
attached to a church or free-standing nearby; see figs. 1.8, 18.1.

CAMPO . Italian for “field,” used in Siena, Venice, and other cities to
denote certain public squares. For the irregularly shaped Campo in Siena, see
figure 1.9; see also PIAZZA.

CANTORIA. The Italian word for a balcony used by musicians, as in the
examples by Luca della Robbia and Donatello once in Florence Cathedral
(figs. 10.16, 10.19).

CAPITAL. The decorated, crowning member of a COLUMN or PILASTER,
on which rests the LINTEL or the arches of an ARCADE; see the courtyard
of the Palazzo Ducale in Urbino (fig. 14.29); see also ORDER (architectural).
CAPOMAESTRO. Italian word for headmaster, used for the person in
charge of design and construction of a cathedral or major governmental
structure. The artist Giotto served as capomaestro of Florence Cathedral
from 1334 until his death in 1337.

CARMELITE ORDER. Begun in the mid-twelfth century by a crusader
named Berthold and his followers, who settled in caves on Mount Carmel
and led lives of silence, seclusion, and abstinence. About 1240 they migrated
to Western Europe, where the rule was altered, the austerities mitigated, and
the ORDER changed to a mendicant (begging) one, analogous to the
DOMINICAN and FRANCISCAN ORDERS. Santa Maria del Carmine in
Florence (see fig. 8.16) is a church of the Carmelite Order.
CARTELLINO. SeeTITULUS.

CARTOON. Full-scale preparatory drawing on one or more sheets of
heavy paper; see Raphael’s cartoons for the School of Athens ( Philosophy )
and for the tapestries for the Sistine Chapel (figs. 17.48, 17.57, 17.59).
CARYATID. A female figure that structurally or decoratively takes on
the function of a COLUMN or PILASTER.

CASS ONE (pi. CASSON7). Italian term for large painted or carved chests
for clothing, as seen in the background of Titian’s Venus of Urbino (fig.

19.19). Pairs of cassoni were given to newlyweds (fig. 13.17). Pesellino’s
painting of the Triumphs of Love, Chastity ; and Death (fig. 12.28) was
originally part of a cassone.

C AT H E D R A L . The church in which the bishop of a diocese has his per-
manent cathedra , or episcopal throne. Not all large churches are cathedrals,
and a city, no matter its size, can have only one cathedral. See the cathedrals
of Florence (figs. 2.38-2.39) and Siena (figs. 2.26-2.27).

CENACOLO . Italian word for supper room or REFECTORY, as in the
Cenacolo of Sant’Apollonia, location for Castagno’s Last Supper i fig. 11.1).
The term is also used to refer to a representation of the Last Supper
CENTERING. The wooden scaffolding, often quite elaborate, used to
support arches and vaults, including domes, while they were being con-
structed. Brunelleschi built the dome of Florence Cathedral without using
traditional centering (fig. 6.11). Centering is visible in Vasari’s fresco
showing the construction of the new St. Peter’s (fig. 20.40).

CHALICE. Generally, a drinking cup, but specifically the cup used to
hold the wine consecrated during the EUCHARIST; see the chalice in the
foreground of Andrea del Sarto’s Lamentation (fig. 18.19).

CHANCEL. The space in a church that contains the high altar or that is
reserved for the clergy and choir. It is set off from the NAVE by steps and
occasionally by a screen; see Palladio’s San Giorgio Maggiore (figs.
19.66-19.67).

CHANCEL ARCH. The area of wall that frames the opening into the
CHANCEL, sometimes also called a triumphal arch; see Giotto’s Arena
Chapel (fig. 3.3) and Santa Croce in Florence (fig. 3.19).

CHAPTER HOUSE. The meeting hall within a monastery where the
residents gather to discuss matters of governance. The so-called “Spanish
Chapel” at Santa Maria Novella in Florence (fig. 5.1) and the Pazzi Chapel
at Santa Croce in Florence (fig. 6.1) are both examples. In Italian churches
chapter houses are usually located off the east or back side of the cloister.
CHASING. The ornamentation of metal by engraving; see the bronze
doors by Pisano and Ghiberti (figs. 3.33-3.34, 7.4-7.6, 10.1, 10.13-10.15).
CHERUB (pi. CHERUBIM). One of an order of angelic beings ranking
second to the SERAPHIM in the celestial hierarchy, usually represented as a
baby angel; see Donatello’s Cantoria (fig. 10.19).

CHIAROSCURO. In painting, the contrast of light and shade — from
the Italian chiaro (light) and oscuro (dark) — to enhance modeling, as in
Masaccio’s Expulsion (figs. 8.13-8.14).

CHIAROSCURO WOODCUT. A WOODBLOCK PRINT made by
using several woodblocks, each printed with a different color; see figure 18.52.
CHRISTUS MORTUUS . Latin phrase used for a natural istically
depicted dead Christ, as in Giotto’s Crucifix (fig. 3.2).

CHRISTUS PATIENS . Latin phrase for a suffering Christ of the
Byzantine type. A cross with a representation of the dead Christ, as seen in
Coppo di Marcovaldo’s and Cimabue’s Crucifixes (figs. 2.7, 2.11-2.12). This
type in general superseded representations of the CHRISTUS TR1UMPHANS.
CHRISTUS TRIUMPHANS . Latin phrase for a triumphant Christ. A
cross with a representation of a living Christ, eyes open and triumphant over
death, as seen in figure 2.3. Scenes of the PASSION OF CHRIST are usually
depicted at the sides.

CIBORIUM . Another word for BALDACCHINO , the canopy usually
placed over an altar or over the reserved sacrament.

CINQUECENTO. Italian word for five hundred, used to refer to the
1500s — the sixteenth century.

CISTERCIAN ORDER. A reform movement in the BENEDICTINE
ORDER started in France in 1098 by St. Robert of Molesme for the purpose
of reasserting the original Benedictine ideals of field work and a life of severe
simplicity.

CLAUSURA. Latin word for closure, used to signify the restriction of
certain orders of monks and nuns to sections of their convents, and to their
prohibition against speaking to lay persons. Castagno’s Last Supper (fig.
11.1) was painted for a nunnery in which CLAUSURA was practiced.
CLERESTORY. The area of a church elevated above adjacent rooftops,
with windows to allow light into the interior. In many churches the

GLOSSARY * 693

clerestory is in the upper part of the NAVE, which is higher than the SIDE
AISLES; for example, see Santa Maria Novella (fig. 2.34).

CLOISTER. An enclosed courtyard in a monastery surrounded by an
ARCADE, providing a place for monks or nuns to walk and breathe fresh
air within the monastic complex; the center is sometimes used as the
monastery’s burial ground. For examples see the plans of the Florentine
monastic complexes at Santa Maria Novella and Santa Croce (figs. 2.35, 2.37).
CLOSED DOOR. See PORTA CLAUSA.

CLOSED GARDEN. See HORTUS CONCLUSUS.
CLOTH-OF-HONOR. A piece of fabric, usually richly colored and
decorated, that hangs behind the Madonna and Child or other religious
figures in paintings. Such cloches were often used by Venetian painters; see
examples by Giorgione and Titian (figs. 19.4, 19.8). The idea may have orig-
inated when such cloths were hung behind sculpted figures for feast days and
special celebrations.

COFFER. In architecture, a recessed panel in a ceiling or vault, first used
in ancient Greek and Roman architecture (see the Pantheon, fig. 1.2). For
examples, see Sant’Andrea in Mantua (fig. 10.9), Piero della Francesca’s
Madonna and Child with Saints (fig. 11.30), and Melozzo da Forli’s
Sixtus IV, His Nephews , and Platina, His Librarian (fig. 14.24).
COLONNADE. A continuous row of COLUMNS supporting an
ENTABLATURE, as in Domenico Veneziano’s Annunciation (fig. 11.9) and
Bramante’s Tempietto (fig. 17.9).

COLONNETTE. A slender, columnar decorative motif, as seen in
Donatello’s Cantoria (fig. 10.19).

COLOSSAL ORDER. See GIANT ORDER.

COLUMN. A free-standing cylindrical support, usually consisting of a
BASE, a rounded SHAFT, sometimes fluted, and a CAPITAL. For examples,
see Brunelleschi’s San Lorenzo (fig. 6.17) and Palladio’s Villa Almerico (fig.
19.62); see also ORDER (architectural).

COMPAGNIA. See COMPANY.

COMPANY (Italian: compagnia). In Renaissance terms, a fraternal
organization under ecclesiastical auspices dedicated to good works. In Venice,
a compagnia was usually called a SCUOLA (school), though it had no edu-
cational function; in Tuscany it was sometimes called a CONFRATERNITY.
COMPOSITE ORDER. See ORDER (architectural).
COMPOUND PIER. A supporting PIER that has COLONNETTES,
half-columns, or PILASTERS attached to it, as in Santa Maria Novella in
Florence (fig. 2.34). Often used in Gothic churches, the compound pier is
also known as a cluster pier.

CONDOTTIERE. Italian term meaning mercenary military leader;
see the monuments to Gattamelata (fig. 10.23), Hawkwood (fig. 11.3),
Tolentino (fig. 11.18), and Colleoni (fig. 13.16).

CONFRATERNITY. See COMPANY.

CONSOLE. A bracket, usually formed of VOLUTES that project from a
wall to support a LINTEL, CORNICE, or other member, as on the Palazzo
Medici cornice (fig. 6.23), or in Michelangelo’s Laurentian Library Entrance
Hall (fig. 18.11).

C ONTADO . Countryside or rural area around a city.
CONTRAPPOSTO . Italian word meaning “set against,” describing the
position assumed by the human body when the weight is borne on one leg
while the other is relaxed. Contrapposto can suggest that a figure has the
potential for movement; see Donatello’s St. Mark (fig. 7.12).

COPE. A semicircular cloak or cape worn by ecclesiastics in processions
and on other solemn ceremonial occasions. The angel in the foreground of
Hugo van der Goes’s Portinari altarpiece (fig. 13.32) wears a cope.
CORBEL. An arrangement of stones that projects from the surface of a
wall to provide support; see the corbels on the Palazzo dei Priori (fig. 2.40).
CORBEL TABLE. A row of CORBELS, as on the Palazzo dei Priori
(fig. 2.40).

CORINTHIAN ORDER. See ORDER (architectural).

CORNICE. The crowning, projecting architectural feature, especially the
uppermost part of an ENTABLATURE; see the Palazzo Medici cornice (fig.
6.23).

CORPUS CHRISTI. Latin phrase for the body of Christ. At the Feast
of Corpus Christi, the presence of Christ in the EUCHARIST is honored,
and there is a procession of the HOST.

CORPUS DOMINI. Latin phrase for body of God. See also CORPUS
CHRISTI.

CROCKETING. A decorative device, usually leaflike in shape, that sur-
mounts the gables and PINNACLES of Gothic architecture and the frames
of panel paintings; note the crockets along the top of the throne of Giotto’s
Enthroned Madonna with Saints (fig. 3.18). For an especially florid
example, see figure 8 . 2 .

CROSS-VAULT. See GROIN VAULT.

CRUCIFIX. From the Latin word crucifixus (an object made in the
shape of a cross), a painted or sculpted representation of a cross with the
figure of Christ crucified on it; see figures 2.7, 2.11-2.12, 3.2.
CRUCIFIXION. The death of Christ on the cross, described in all four
of the GOSPELS (for example, Matthew 27:33-56). In Christian theology,
the Crucifixion represents Christ’s sacrifice for the sins of the world — an act
that made it possible for humanity to gain access to paradise. Because it is
the central mystery in Christianity, it is frequently represented; see examples
by Masaccio, Mantegna, and Tintoretto (figs. 8.1, 15.21, 19.43).
CRUCIFORM. A word used to describe the Latin cross shape of many
Christian churches; see figures 2.35, 2.39, 5.16, 6.14, 6.19, 19.67.
CUPOLA. Another word for DOME — a rounded, convex roof or vaulted
ceiling, usually hemispherical, on a circular BASE and requiring BUTTRESS-
ING; see Brunelleschi’s cupola for Florence Cathedral (fig. 6.7) and
Michelangelo’s for St. Peter’s (fig. 20.11).

CUSPING. In Gothic architecture, a motif composed of a series of scal-
lops that decorate an arched opening, also used to decorate Gothic niches for
sculpture and the frames of panel paintings; see the niche for Nanni di
Banco’s Four Crowned Martyrs (fig. 7.15) and the frame of Lorenzo
Monaco’s Coronation of the Virgin (fig. 5.12).

DALMATIC. An ecclesiastical vestment slit at the sides and with wide
sleeves, worn in the Western church by deacons at High MASS. The full-
length angels at the top of the tomb of the Cardinal of Portugal are shown
wearing dalmatics (fig. 12.14). A similar garment was also worn by kings at
coronation.

DENTILS. A decorative molding derived from antiquity that consists of
a row of small, projecting blocks, used as a motif on IONIC and
CORINTHIAN CORNICES; see Donatello’s Annunciation (fig. 10.21).
DEPOSITION. The removal of Christ’s body from the cross after the
CRUCIFIXION; also known as the Descent from the Cross; see the exam-
ples by Lorenzetti and Fiorentino (figs. 4.25, 18.28).

DESCENT FROM THE CROSS. See DEPOSITION.
DIAPHRAGM ARCH. An ARCH set within a wall that divides one
spatial area from another. Such walls are found on the sides of the four
porches of Palladio’s Villa Almerico (Villa Rotonda) (fig. 19.62).
DIPTYCH. ALTARPIECE or devotional picture consisting of two
wooden panels joined together.

DISEGNO . Italian for “design” or “drawing,” used in the Renaissance to
refer to the emphasis on precise figure drawing in Florentine and Roman art,
especially of the High Renaissance.

DI S OTTO IN S U. Italian phrase that refers to the idea of looking up
from below. A type of ILLUSIONISM in painting, achieved by means of
sharp FORESHORTENING, in which the figures and architecture seem to
be high above and receding from the spectator; see Mantegna’s frescoes in
the Camera picta (fig. 15.26) and Correggio’s Vision of St. John the Evan-
gelist (fig. 18.43).

DOGE. Italian word for the elected head of state in Venice and Genoa.
DOME. A large CUPOLA supported by a circular wall or DRUM, or,
over a noncircular space, by corner structures such as PENDENTIVES; see
figure 6.7.

DOMICAL VAULT. A four-sided VAULT shaped like a DOME with
arched openings on all four sides. The domical vault was popularized in the
Renaissance by Brunelleschi, who used it for the loggia of the Ospedale degli

694 • GLOSSARY

Innocenti (fig. 6.13) and the side aisles at both San Lorenzo and Santo
Spirito (figs. 6.17-6.18).

DOMINICAN ORDER. Founded as a preaching ORDER at Toulouse
in 1216 by St. Dominic, the Dominicans lived austerely and believed in
having no possessions, surviving by charity and begging. After the FRAN-
CISCANS, they became the second great mendicant (begging) order. The
churches of Santa Maria Novella (fig. 2.34) and San Marco in Florence are
of the Dominican Order. The painter Fra Angelico (see pp. 222-231 ) was a
Dominican monk.

DONOR. The person or group who commissions and pays for a work of
art or architecture for public display, usually as a religious donation to a
church or monastery. The donor is occasionally represented in the work, as
in Giotto’s Arena Chapel (fig. 3.14), Masaccio’s Trinity (fig. 8.21), and
Mantegna’s Madonna of the Victory (fig. 15.27); see also PATRON.
DORIC ORDER. See ORDER (architectural).

DRUM. One of several sections composing the SHAFT of a COLUMN.
Also, a cylindrical wall supporting a DOME; see Bramante’s Tempietto (fig.
17.9) and the dome of St. Peter’s (fig. 20.10).

D R Y P OINT NEEDLE. A pointed metal tool with a slightly rough ball
on the point, which, when dragged across a copperplate, produces a rough
scratch with raised copper (called the BURR) to the sides. When printed, this
produces a slightly blurred line. For an example, see the print by Mantegna
(fig. 15.28).

DUECENTO. Italian word for two hundred, used to refer to the
1200s — the thirteenth century; also called Dugento.

DUOMO. Italian word for CATHEDRAL.

EGG- AND-D ART. A decorative molding derived from anti-quity that
consists of alternating oval and pointed, arrowlike forms, as in the FRIEZE
of Donatello’s Annunciation (fig. 10 . 21 ).

ENGRAVING. A printmaking technique in which lines scratched into a
copperplate with a BURIN are inked and printed; see examples by Pollaiuolo
and Mantegna (figs. 13.5, 15.28).

ENTABLATURE. The upper part of an architectural ORDER; see the
portico of the Villa Medici at Poggio a Caiano, where the FRIEZE of the
entablature is decorated with figures (fig. 12 . 20 ).

EUCHARIST. From the Greek word for thanksgiving. The sacrament of
the Lord’s Supper, celebrated in the MASS. Eucharist can refer to the consecrated
bread and wine used in the rite of Communion, or to the rite itself.
EXEDRA. A semicylindrical architectural space or shape surmounted by
a half-dome; see the exedrae on Brunelleschi’s dome for Florence Cathedral
(% 6 . 8 ).

EX- VOTO . Latin phrase meaning “from a vow.” An ex-voto is an offer-
ing made to fulfill a vow, often in the form of a painting presented to a
church in hope of or in gratitude for divine help.

FATHERS OF THE CHURCH. The four Latin Fathers of the
Church are saints Jerome, Ambrose, Augustine, and Gregory, who were
early teachers and defenders of Christianity. They are represented, with the
four Evangelists, in the lower panels of Ghiberti’s North Doors (fig. 7.4).
FIGURA SERPENT IN AT A. A figural position that twists the limbs
in different directions, producing a spiral effect in space, as in Michelangelo’s
St. Matthew (fig. 16.41) and Victory (fig. 18.15) and Parmigianino’s Vision
of St. Jerome (fig. 18.49).

FORESHORTENING. The technique used in painting or RELIEF
sculpture to suggest that figures, parts of the body, or other forms are shown
in sharp recession, as in Mantegna’s Foreshortened Christ (fig. 15.23).
FRANCISCAN ORDER. The first great mendicant (begging)
ORDER, founded by St. Francis of Assisi (Giovanni di Bernardone,
1181/82-1226) for the purpose of ministering to the spiritual needs of the
poor and imitating as closely as possible the life of Christ, especially in its
poverty. Examples of Franciscan churches include Santa Croce in Florence
(figs. 2.36-2.37) and Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari (figs. 5.15-5.16) in
Venice.

FRESCO. Italian word meaning “fresh,” referring to a painting made on
wet plaster with pigments suspended in water so that the plaster absorbs the
colors and the painting becomes part of the wall; see figure 1.15. FRESCO
A SECCO , or painting on dry plaster ( secco is Italian for “dry”), was also
used, but is a much less durable technique, and the paint tends to flake off
with time.

FRIEZE. The middle part of the ENTABLATURE; also, any horizontal
band decorated with moldings, RELIEF sculpture, or painting. The frieze of
Donatello’s Annunciation (fig. 10 . 21 ) is decorated with several motifs
drawn from classical antiquity.

GENIUS (pi. GENII). In Roman and Renaissance art, usually the
guardian spirit of a person, place, or thing, though it may be purely decora-
tive. Genii are represented in human form frequently seminude and winged;
see th e genii on the base of the tomb of the Cardinal of Portugal (fig. 12.14).
GESSO. A mixture of finely ground plaster and glue used to prepare the
surface of a wooden panel for TEMPERA painting (fig. 1.13), or to prepare
a wooden sculpture for POLYCHROMY, as in Donatello’s Penitent Mag-
dalen (fig. 12 . 6 ).

GIANT (or COLOSSAL) ORDER. PILASTERS or COLUMNS that
span more than one story of a structure; see the pilasters on the exterior and
interior of St. Peter’s in Rome (figs. 17.15, 20.10).

GILDING. Coating with gold, gold leaf, or some gold-colored substance,
as in Orcagna’s altarpiece (fig. 5.3); for a diagram, see figure 1.13. Tech-
niques were devised in Italy for gilding on painting, sculpture, and architec-
tural ornament.

GIORNATA (pi. GIORNATE). A patch of INTONACO of sufficient
size for an artist to complete one day’s work on a FRESCO, thereby reveal-
ing how quickly an artist and his workshop worked. For examples that indi-
cate the progress on a work, see Masaccio’s Tribute Money , which took
thirty-one days to complete (fig. 8.9), and Michelangelo’s Creation of the
Sun , Moon , and Planets on the Sistine Chapel Ceiling, which took seven
days to finish (fig. 17.34).

GLAZES . In oil painting, thin layers of superimposed translucent varnish,
often with a small amount of pigment added, to modify color and build up
a rich, sonorous effect. Titian used glazes extensively in such later pictures
as the Rape of Europa (fig. 19.24).

GOLDEN LEGEND . A collection of stories of saints’ lives written in
the thirteenth century by Jacopo da Voragine, archbishop of Genoa. The
scene of the Virgin Mary appearing to St. Bernard, as painted by Filippino
Lippi, is drawn from the Golden Legend (fig. 13.31).

GOLGOTHA. Aramaic word for “skull”; thus, the Place of the Skull.
Golgotha is the site outside Jerusalem where Christ was crucified (Matthew
27:33). Calvary, another name for the same place, is from the Latin word for
skull, calvaria. Note the skull visible below the cross of Christ in Giotto’s
Crucifix (fig. 3.2).

GONFALONIERE. Italian for “standard-bearer” — the title given to an
important Florentine political official. The male DONOR in Masaccio’s
Trinity is dressed in the robes of a gonfaloniere (fig. 8 . 21 ).

GOSPEL. In Christian usage, the name given to the first four books of the
New Testament, which relate the story of Christ’s life and teachings. These
books are traditionally ascribed to the Evangelists Matthew, Mark, Luke,
and John.

GRISAILLE. Monochromatic painting in shades of gray that resembles
stone sculpture; see Giotto’s Virtues and Vices in the Arena Chapel (figs.
3.15-3.17).

GROIN VAULT. A VAULT created by the intersection at right angles of
two BARREL VAULTS of equal height and diameter, forming a diagonal
cross; see Santa Maria Novella (fig. 2.34). Also known as a cross-vault.
GROTTESCHI . A decorative scheme in paint or stucco using motifs dis-
covered during the Renaissance in an ancient Roman setting that was pre-
sumed to be a grotto, hence the name. These motifs were interwoven into a
variety of patterns to cover walls or PILASTERS; see Pintoricchio’s Piccolo-
mini Library frescoes (fig. 14.1) and Raphael’s Villa Madama (fig. 17.61).

GLOSSARY • 695

GUILDS. Arti (sing. Arte) in Italian. Independent associations of bankers
and artisan-manufacturers. There were seven major guilds in Florence (see p.
24). Other guilds included the Arte dei Corazzai e Spadai — armorers and
sword-makers; the Arte dei Linaioli e Rigattieri — linen drapers and peddlers;
and the Arte di Pietra e Legname — workers in stone and wood, including
stone sculptors. See also MERCANZIA.

GUILLOCHE. An ancient decorative motif composed of curvilinear
interlaced lines; it is used for the FRIEZE in Castagno’s Last Supper (fig.
11 . 1 ).

HARPY (pi. HARPIES). From the Greek word meaning “snatcher,” a
female monster who carries souls to hell, combining a woman’s head and
body with a bird’s wings, legs, claws, and tail; see the harpies on the base of
the Madonna’s pedestal in Andrea del Sarto’s Madonna of the Harpies (fig.
18.18). Harpies occasionally appear as more benign spirits who carry souls
to another world.

HELLENISTIC. The historic period from the time of Alexander the
Great in the fourth century BCE until the first century BCE. The Belvedere
Torso ihg. 1”.4) is an example of art from this period.

H E R M . The torso of a male figure emerging from a pedestal, sometimes
used as a PILASTER; see the four examples in the Altar of Mars in Filippino
Lippi’s St. Philip Exorcising the Demon in the Temple of Mars (fig. 13.34).
HORTUS CONCLUSUS. Latin phrase for “CLOSED GARDEN,”
referring to the phrase “A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse; a spring
shut up, a fountain sealed” (Song of Solomon 4:12). Often used as a symbol
of Mary’s virginity in scenes of the ANNUNCIATION; see the example by
Fra Angelico (fig. 9.1).

HOST. From the Latin hostia (“sacrificial victim”). In some Christian
denominations the term Host is used to designate the bread or wafer conse-
crated in the EUCHARIST or MASS and regarded as the body of Christ. The
priest is holding up the Host in Raphael’s Mass of Bolsena (fig. 17.52).
HUMANIST, HUMANISM. This title originally applied to a teacher
of humanistic studies — rhetoric, grammar, poetry, history, and moral philos-
ophy — based on the study of ancient texts on these topics in Latin and
Greek. These texts confirmed a new intellectual and scientific interest in
understanding the world, while their praise for the deeds of great figures
from antiquity supported the notions of pride and fame that were becoming
important. During this period humanism was, with some effort, integrated
with Christianity, seeking to supplement faith by insisting on the dignity of
the individual and the human potential for achievement.

ICON. From the Greek term for “image” or “likeness,” but commonly
used in Orthodox Christian denominations to designate a panel painting
representing Christ, the Virgin Mary, a saint, or a religious narrative.
ICONOGRAPHY. The identification and study of the subject matter of
a work of art, including the identification of symbols.

ILLUSIONISM. Technique of representing the objects and architecture
in a work of art, usually a painting, so they seem to be weighty and tangible
and existing within actual space; see Perugino’s Christ Giving the Keys to
St. Peter (fig. 14.16) and Melozzo da Forli’s Sixtus IV, his Nephews , and
Platina, his Librarian (fig. 14.24).

/MPASTO (pi: 1MPASTI). Raised brushstrokes of thick paint, as in
Titian’s Rape of Europa (fig. 19.24).

IMPOST BLOCK. A square block placed above the CAPITAL in an
architectural ORDER; for examples, see Brunelleschi’s church of San
Lorenzo, in which the impost blocks are decorated (fig. 6.17), and his church
of Santo Spirito, in which they are left plain (fig. 6.18).

IN S I T U . In the original location.

INTARSIA. Inlaid cabinetwork composed of various woods; see Federico
da Montefeltro’s STUDIOLO (figs. 14.31-14.32) and the North SACRISTY
of Florence Cathedral (fig. 12.16).

INTONA C O . The layer of smooth plaster on which a FRESCO is painted;
see figure 1.15.

IONIC ORDER. See ORDER (architectural).

ISTORIA. Italian term for history or historical narrative. See also
STORIA.

LAMENTATION. The mourning of Christ’s mother and his followers
over the body of Christ after the DEPOSITION. Not mentioned in biblical
accounts of the CRUCIFIXION; see the example by Andrea del Sarto (fig.
18.19).

LANTERN. The official architectural term for a windowed turret at the
cop of a DOME; see the lanterns at the top of the domes in figures 6.9,
17.16.

LAST JUDGMENT. The second coming of Christ, when he judges
souls to determine whether individuals will be sent to heaven or to hell. Rep-
resentations of this subject are usually accompanied by a multitude of saints
and angels, and scenes from heaven and hell. See the examples by Giotto and
Michelangelo (figs. 3.1, 20.1).

LINTEL. The horizontal beam spanning an opening, as on the facade of
Peruzzi’s Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne (fig. 18,60).

LITANY. A form of group prayer consisting of a series of supplications
by the clergy with responses from the congregation.

LITURGY. The ceremonies of public worship, including the required
prayers and other readings.

LOGGIA (pi. LOGGIE). A gallery or ARCADE open to the air on at least
one side; see Brunelleschi’s Ospedale degli Innocenti (fig. 6.13).

LOST PROFILE. The representation of a face turned away from the
viewer so that less than half the face is visible, used by Renaissance painters
to increase the illusion of depth; see the angels in Masaccio’s early Madonna
and Child with Saints (fig. 8.5) or Judas in Leonardo’s Last Supper (fig.
16.23).

MACHICOLATIONS. Openings in a projecting wall or parapet through
which pitch or molten lead might be cast upon the enemy beneath; see the
machicolations across the top of the Palazzo dei Priori in Florence (fig. 2.40).
MAESTA. Italian term meaning “Virgin in Majesty,” used to refer to a
large ALTARPIECE of the Virgin enthroned, adored by saints and angels;
see Duccio’s Maesta for Siena Cathedral (fig. 4.5).

MANDORLA. From the Italian word for “almond,” an oval or almond-
shaped halo that surrounds a figure to indicate divinity or holiness; see the
Florentine Baptistery mosaics (fig. 2.9), Giotto’s Last Judgment from Pisa
(fig. 3.1), Orcagna’s Strozzi altarpiece (fig. 5.3), and Nanni di Banco’s
Assumption of the Virgin (fig. 7.16). In Torriti’s Coronation of the Virgin,
the Virgin and Christ share a mandorla (fig. 2.14), but in the Master of the
Triumph of Death’s Last Judgment (fig. 4.37) they have individual mandorlas.
MANIERA. From the Italian for “manner,” a term sometimes used by art
historians to define a sophisticated, artificial, and refined style that flour-
ished in the Italian courts during much of the sixteenth century. The term has
been used to describe such a diverse group of works created in so many
centers by such different artists that it has become confusing and is no longer
used in this book. The relationship of this term to the broader and also mis-
leading term MANNERISM has been variously interpreted.
MANNERISM. See MANIERA.

MASS. The celebration of the EUCHARIST to perpetuate the sacrifice of
Christ upon the cross, including readings from one of the GOSPELS and an
epistle; also the form of LITURGY used in this celebration.
MAZZOCCHIO . A wire or wicker frame around which a hood or
cappuccio was wrapped to form a headdress commonly worn by fifteenth-
century Florentine men; see Uccello’s Deluge (fig. 11.4).

MERCANZIA , MERCATANZIA. The merchants’ GUILD.
MINORITES. A name once used for the Franciscan Friars Minor, the
largest of the three branches of the FRANCISCAN ORDER.

MITRE. A hat terminating in tall peaks at the front and back — the distinc-
tive headdress of the pope, bishops, and abbots. Mitres are worn by St.
Zenobius in Domenico Veneziano’s St. Lucy altarpiece (fig. 11.8), the
deceased in the tomb of the Cardinal of Portugal (fig. 12.14), and St. Louis
of Toulouse in Giovanni Bellini’s San Giobbe altarpiece (fig. 15.41).

696 • GLOSSARY

MONSTRANCE. An open or transparent receptacle of gold or silver in
which the consecrated HOST is exposed for adoration; one is shown on the
altar in Raphael’s Disputa (fig. 17.49).

MOZZETTA. A cape with a hood worn by the pope and other digni-
taries of the Church; see Titian’s Pope Paul III (fig. 19.21).

MULLION. A vertical COLONNETTE or support dividing a window
into two or more openings; see the Palazzo Medici (fig. 6.23).

NAVE. The large central hall, usually axial and often with a
CLERESTORY, that characterizes the BASILICA and Latin cross plans; see
Brunelleschi’s Santo Spirito (fig. 6.18).

NEO-PL ATONISM. A school of Greek philosophy established in
Alexandria in the third century CE that was revived by Italian humanists in
the fifteenth century. These scholars translated the works of Plato and Plot-
inus and tried to evolve a system that would reconcile Christian beliefs with
Neo-Platonic mystical thought. How much impact this movement had on art
is still debated. See also PLATONIC ACADEMY.

NYMPHAEUM. Literally “a place for nymphs.” A term used to describe
a garden with pools, fountains, and statuary that create a secluded wood-
land effect. A semicircular nymphaeum is found behind Palladio’s Villa
Barbaro at Maser (figs. 19.64-19.65).

OCULUS (pi. OCULI). A circular opening in a wall, as in the CLERESTORY
and DRUM of Florence Cathedral (fig. 6.7), or at the apex of a DOME, as
at the Pantheon (fig. 1.2) and Santa Maria delle Carceri in Prato (fig. 12.21).
OGEE ARCH. A pointed arch with curving sides, as on the facade of the
Ca d’Oro (fig. 15.8).

OIL PAINT. Pigments mixed with the slow-drying and flexible medium
of oil. Oil paint can be applied to a panel covered with GESSO, as in
TEMPERA painting, or to a stretched canvas strengthened with a mixture of
glue and white pigment.

OPERA DEL DUOMO. Board of Works of a CATHEDRAL, often
functioning as the PATRON for works of art created for the cathedral. A
cathedral museum is sometimes known as the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo.
ORATORY OF DIVINE LOVE. A CONFRATERNITY, founded in
Rome and aimed at the reform of the Church from within. It was pledged to
the cultivation of the spiritual life of its members by prayer and frequent
Communion and to the performance of charitable works. It had received the
grudging approval of Pope Leo X by 1517, but was dissolved in 1524. Its
members expanded their original work into the newly founded THEATINE
ORDER.

ORDER (architectural). A series of Greek and Roman architectural motifs
that give aesthetic definition and decoration to the post-and-lintel system.
An order is characterized by a COLUMN (usually including BASE, SHAFT,
and CAPITAL) and its ENTABLATURE (including ARCHITRAVE,
FRIEZE, and CORNICE). The five classical orders are the DORIC (fig.
17.9), IONIC (figs. 19.2, 20.51), CORINTHIAN (figs. 17.15, 19.68),
TUSCAN (fig. 18.59), and COMPOSITE (fig. 9.7). PILASTERS, or half-
columns that span two stories of a structure, are referred to as examples of
the GIANT or COLOSSAL ORDER.

ORDER (monastic). A religious society or fraternity living under a partic-
ular rule. See BENEDICTINE, CAMALDOLITE, CARMELITE, CISTER-
CIAN, DOMINICAN, FRANCISCAN, and THEATINE.
ORTHOGONALS. Lines running at right angles to the picture surface
but, in a representation using one-point perspective, converging toward a
common vanishing point in the distance; the orthogonals are clearly visible
in the piazza of Perugino’s Christ Giving the Keys to St . Peter (fig. 14.16).
For a diagram see figure 6.5.

PALAZZO (pi. PALAZZI). Italian for “palace,” but during the Renais-
sance and later the word was also used for large civic or even religious build-
ings, as well as for relatively modest town houses.

PALMETTES, PALMETTO DECORATION. An ancient deco-
rative motif composed of long, thick palm fronds fanned out to form circu-

lar patterns, as in Donatello’s Cantoria (fig. 10.19).

PARCHMENT. Processed animal skin used for manuscript pages and
other documents (see figs. 5.21, 15.52).

PASSION OF CHRIST. The sufferings of Christ during the last week
of his earthly life, or the representation of his sufferings in narrative or pic-
torial form, as at Giotto’s Arena Chapel (fig. 3.4), or in the fresco cycle in
the Collegiate Church at San Gimignano (figs. 4.20—4.22).

PASTIGLIA. Raised plaster decoration, as seen in the letters that seem
to be coming from Gabriel’s mouth in Simone Martini and Lippo Memmi’s
Annunciation with Two Saints (fig. 4.17), or on the frame of figure 15.42.
PATEN. The shallow dish, usually circular, on which the HOST is laid
during the EUCHARIST or MASS; see the paten resting atop the CHALICE
in Andrea del Sarto’s Lamentation (fig. 18.19).

PATRON . The person or group who commissions and pays for a work of
art or architecture. The patron is sometimes represented in the work, as in
Giotto’s Arena Chapel (fig. 3.14), Masaccio’s Trinity (fig. 8.21), and Man-
tegna’s Madonna of the Victory (fig. 15.27). See also DONOR.
PEDIMENT. A triangular architectural motif developed in ancient
Greece and popular for temple facades in ancient Rome. Usually supported
by columns, half-columns, or pilasters, as on the facade of the Pantheon (fig.
1.2) and Palladio’s San Giorgio Maggiore (fig. 19.68). Arched or rounded
pediments became popular in the Renaissance. See Michelangelo’s Laurent-
ian Library, which features both the traditional triangular and the rounded
pediment (fig. 18.11).

PENDENTIVE. In a domed structure, the four curved triangular
segments that provide a transition from a square or rectangular space to the
DRUM or circular base of a DOME; see Brunelleschi’s Pazzi Chapel (fig.
6.1) and Bramante’s Santa Maria presso San Satiro (fig. 17.5).
PERISTYLE. A COLONNADE or ARCADE around a building or open
court; see the courtyard of the Palazzo Ducale at Urbino (fig. 14.29).
PIANO NOBILE. Italian phrase meaning “noble floor” or “floor for
the nobles.” It refers to the second story of a building (American style; in
Europe this is called the first story), intended for the owner and family; see
Bramante’s Palazzo Caprini (fig. 17.19).

PIAZZA. Italian word for public square; see the huge piazza in Perugino’s
Christ Giving the Keys to St. Peter (fig. 14.16). See also CAMPO.

PIER. A vertical architectural support used in an arched or vaulted struc-
tural system. Piers are usually rectangular in section but, if used with an
ORDER, they may be decorated with half-COLUMNS or PILASTERS with
BASES and CAPITALS of the same design. For an example see the interior
of Florence Cathedral (fig. 2.38).

PIET A. Italian word meaning both “pity” and “piety.” It designates a rep-
resentation of the dead Christ, generally but not always mourned by the
Virgin, and with or without saints and/or angels; see Michelangelo’s Florence
Pietd (fig. 20.16). When the representation shows a larger group of figures
it is usually termed a LAMENTATION; see the example by Andrea del Sarto
(fig. 18.19).

PIETRA FORTE. The tan stone traditionally employed by Florentine
builders. The Palazzo dei Priori in Florence is built of pietra forte ; see figure
2.40.

PIETRA SERENA. The gray Tuscan limestone used in Florence.
Brunelleschi used pietra serena in the Ospedale degli Innocenti, the Pazzi
Chapel, and many other structures (see figs. 6.1, 6.13, 6.15, 6.17-6.18).
PILASTER. A shallow, vertical element having a CAPITAL and BASE. A
pilaster is engaged in a wall, from which it projects, and is decorative rather
than structural. See the exterior and interior of Alberti’s Sant’ Andrea in
Mantua (figs. 10.7, 10.9) and of St. Peter’s in Rome (figs. 17.15, 20.10).
PIN AC OT EC A. Italian word for picture gallery.

PINNACLE. A pointed ornamental motif used along the crest of paint-
ings, sculptural niches, and buildings. It is mainly decorative and is especially
common in the Gothic period; see the facade of Siena Cathedral (fig. 2.27),
Giotto’s design for the Campanile in Florence (fig. 3.24), and the niche for
Nanni di Banco’s Four Crowned Martyrs (fig. 7.15).

PINXIT. Latin word for “he/she painted,” often used in artists’ signatures.

GLOSSARY • 697

P L AT ONIC ACADEMY. An informal group of fifteenth-century Flo-
rentine humanists and scholars, founded by Marsilio Ficino, who translated
Plato and Plotinus into Latin. The academy’s history is uncertain, but it was
apparently encouraged by Cosimo de’ Medici. See also NEO-PLATONISM.
PLINTH. A square block supporting a column, pedestal, or statue; note
the plinths below the column bases in Brunelleschi’s San Lorenzo and Santo
Spirito, where they function as part of his proportional system (figs.
6.17-6.18).

POLYCHROMY. The addition of many colors, especially to sculptures,
to achieve a naturalistic or colorful effect: see Donatello’s Penitent Mag-
dalen (fig. 12.6) or Mazzoni’s Adoration of the Child (fig. 15.68).
POLYPTYCH. An ALTARPIECE or devotional object consisting of
more than three sections joined together; see Lorenzetti’s Pieve altarpiece
(fig. 4.23) and Orcagna's Strozzi altarpiece (fig. 5.3).

PORPHYRY. A rare, hard, purplish-red stone; the wall behind the tomb
of the Cardinal of Portugal is porphyry (fig. 12.14). Sometimes Renaissance
sculptors and architects used red marble or even red sandstone as a substitute.
PORTA CLAUSA. Latin phrase for “closed door,” referring to Ezekiel’s
vision of the door of the sanctuary in the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem,
which was closed because only the Lord could enter it (Ezekiel 44:1-4). The
porta clausa is used as a symbol of Mary’s virginity, often in scenes of the
ANNUNCIATION; see the example by Piero della Francesca (fig. 11.27).
POUNCING. A method of transferring a drawing to a surface prepara-
tory to painting. Small holes pricked along the outlines of the CARTOON
are dusted with powdered charcoal so that the lines of the composition are
transferred to the surface beneath. The drawing used in this method is called
a SPOLVERO. Piero della Francesca often used pounced drawings to trans-
fer his carefully designed heads to the INTONACO surface in his FRESCO
cycle at San Francesco in Arezzo; see figs. 11.23-11.24.

PREDELLA. Pedestal of an ALTARPIECE, usually decorated with small
narrative scenes; see Orcagna’s Strozzi altarpiece (fig. 5.3), Monaco’s
Coronation of the Virgin (fig. 5.12), and Fabriano’s Adoration of the
Magi (fig. 8 . 2 ).

PRIE-DIEU. French phrase literally meaning “pray God.” A small
prayer desk with a footpiece on which to kneel and a support to hold a
book. A prie-dieu is visible behind the Virgin Mary in Lotto’s Annunciation
(fig. 19.1).

PRINT. The artwork made when a wooden block or copperplate or some
other material is prepared with a design, inked, and pressed onto a sheet or
paper or some other material. See figures 13.28 (a WOODBLOCK PRINT),
13.5 (an ENGRAVING), 15.28 (an ENGRAVING with BURR from a DRY-
POINT NEEDLE), and 18.52 (a CHIAROSCURO WOODCUT).
PRIORI. Italian for “priors” — the council or principal governing body of
a town.

PUNCH WORK. The addition of patterned effects by using stamps that
indent the surface of a panel painting; see figures 4.14, 4.17.

PUTTO (pi. PUTTI). A figure of a male baby, often winged. Sometimes
these figures personify love and are called cupids or amoretti ; sometimes
they are intended to represent angels and are called angeletti. Often they are
purely decorative. The term putto is of modern application; documents
sometimes refer to these figures as spiritelli. They are especially common in
the art of Donatello; see his Annunciation (fig. 10.21) and also the putti on
the Marsuppini tomb (figs. 12.10-12.11).

QUATREFOIL. The elegant French Gothic shape used, for example, for
the first two sets of bronze doors created for the Florentine Baptistery by
Pisano and Ghiberti; see figs. 3.33-3.34, 7.4— 7.6. Also used for paintings;
see the predella panels of the altarpiece by Monaco (figs. 5.12-5.13).
QUATTROCENTO. Italian word for four hundred, used to refer to
the 1400s — the fifteenth century.

QUOIN. Larger, heavier blocks of stone used along the corners to define
and frame an architectural structure; see figures 16.12, 18.57.

REFECTORY. The dining hall of a monastery, often decorated with a

painting of the Last Supper; see Leonardo’s Last Supper (fig. 16.23); see
also CENACOLO.

RELIEF. Sculpture in which the figures or forms are united with a back-
ground and project from it. It is called high relief (fig. 2.30) or low relief
(figs. 10.25-10.26) depending on the amount of projection. Ghiberti and
Donatello evolved a kind of relief that combined high and low relief, called
pictorial relief (see figs. 7.18, 10.14). See also RILIEVO SCHIACCIATO.
RESURRECTION. The rising again of Christ on the third day after his
death and burial, a scene mentioned in the GOSPELS but not directly
described; see the examples by Piero della Francesca and Michelangelo (figs.
11 . 20 , 18.8).

RIBBED VAULT. A GROIN VAULT with the groins accentuated by
projecting stone ribs; see Santa Maria Novella (fig. 2.34).

RILIEVO SCHIACCIATO . Italian term for “flattened relief,” refer-
ring to a kind of sculpture initiated by Donatello in which distance and per-
spective are achieved by optical suggestion rather than sculptural projection;
see his St. George and the Dragon (fig. 7.14) and Michelangelo’s
Madonna of the Stairs (fig. 16.33).

RINCEAU (pi. RINCEAUX). An ancient decorative motif composed of
the leafy tendrils of a vine, usually arranged to form a pattern of repeated
spirals; see the altar in Ghiberti’s competition panel (fig. 7.3).

ROSARY. A string of beads ending in a crucifix. The form in present use
was developed by the DOMINICAN ORDER as an aid to memory in the
recitation of prayers. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries there were
many forms of rosary; see figure 15.64.

RUSTICATION. Protruding masonry, frequently with a roughened
surface; see the Palazzo dei Priori (fig. 2.40), the Palazzo Pitti (fig. 10.12),
the Palazzo del Te (fig. 18.61), and Ammanati’s courtyard of the Palazzo
Pitti (fig. 20.26).

SACRA CONVERSAZIONE. Italian term for “sacred conversa-
tion,” a Madonna and Child accompanied by four or more saints either con-
versing or silently communing in a unified, continuous space; see Mantegna’s
San Zeno altarpiece (fig. 15.19) and Giovanni Bellini’s San Zaccaria altar-
piece (fig. 15.1).

SACRISTY. The room in a church near the high altar where the clothing
and objects needed for the MASS are stored and where the persons involved
in the ceremony dress; see the North Sacristy of Florence Cathedral, with its
elaborate INTARSIA decoration (fig. 12.16).

SALA. Italian for “room” or “hall.”

SCUOLA (pi. SCUOLE). See COMPANY.

SERAPH (pi. SERAPHIM). A celestial being or angel of the highest order,
usually represented with three sets of wings and sometimes shown as a head
with wings; see the seraphim that compose the MANDORLA of Christ in
Orcagna’s Strozzi altarpiece (fig. 5.3) and of Sassetta’s St. Francis in
Ecstasy (fig. 14.2). See also CHERUB.

SFUMATO . Italian term for “smoky,” used for the method developed by
Leonardo da Vinci of modeling figures by virtually imperceptible gradations
from light to dark; see the Madonna of the Rocks (fig. 16.18).
SGRAFFITO (pi. SGRAFFITI). A technique of scratched and tinted
designs in plaster used for Florentine house facades, seen in the FRIEZE of
the Palazzo Medici courtyard (fig. 6.26). Also any drawings or writings
scratched on a wall.

SHAFT. A cylindrical form; in architecture, the part of a COLUMN or
PIER between the BASE and CAPITAL; see the courtyard of the Palazzo
Ducale at Urbino (fig. 14.29).

SIBYLS. Greek and Roman prophetesses who were thought to have fore-
told the coming of Christ; see Michelangelo’s Sistine Ceiling (figs. 17.30,
17.36). The sibyls are known by their location; thus the Delphic Sibyl is from
Delphi, the Cumaean Sibyl from Cumae, and the Tibertine Sibyl, from
Rome, is named for the Tiber River.

SIDE AISLE. One of the corridors parallel to the NAVE of a church, sep-
arated from it by an ARCADE or COLONNADE; see the side aisles flank-
ing the nave in Brunelleschi’s Santo Spirito (fig. 6.18).

698 • GLOSSARY

SIGNORIA . Italian word for lordship, used to refer to the governing
bodies of Florence.

SILVERPOINT. A drawing made with a slender silver rod or wire on
paper coated with a colored, slightly grainy preparation; see Leonardo’s
Study of the Head of the Angel (fig. 16.19).

SINOPIA (pi. SINOPIE). Preliminary brush drawing in red earth mixed
with water, usually done on the ARRICCIO layer when making a FRESCO;
see figures 1.15-1.16. This Italian term derives from the city of Sinope in
Asia Minor, which was famous for its red earth.

SOFFIT. The underside of an ARCH, as seen in the background in figure
14.24, or of a CORNICE, VAULT, or balcony.

SPALLIERA (pi. SPALLIERE). Italian term for one of the large horizon-
tal paintings placed in a Florentine Renaissance home high on the wall above
the paneled wainscoting. Botticelli’s Venus and Mars (fig. 13.22) may orig-
inally have functioned in this manner.

SPANDREL. The roughly triangular area between two adjoining
ARCHES; see the sequence of spandrels in the courtyard of the Palazzo
Ducale at Urbino (fig. 14.29) and the spandrels on either side of the arch in
Foppa’s Crucifixion (fig. 15.60).

SPOLVERO . Italian term for “dust off,” used to describe a preparatory
drawing for a FRESCO. In the method known as POUNCING, small holes
are pricked along the outlines of the drawing and dusted with powdered
charcoal so that the lines of the composition are transferred to the surface
beneath. Piero della Francesca often used the spolvero technique to transfer
his carefully designed heads to the fresco surface in his cycle at San
Francesco in Arezzo; see figures 11.23-11.24.

SPRUE. The channels through which molten bronze passes to reach a mold
when casting a bronze sculpture; see figure 1.19. The sprues also fill with
bronze, which needs to be cut away once the work is cast and the mold removed.
S T I G M AT A . Marks corresponding to the wounds of the crucified Christ
that appear on the hands, feet, and side of religious persons after prolonged
meditation. They are believed to be a token of divine favor. St. Francis, the
example most frequently represented, is said to have received the stigmata in
1224; see Giotto’s and Giovanni Bellini’s representations of this scene (figs.
3.23, 15.43).

STORIA . Italian for “story” or “history,” used by Alberti to refer to a
representation of a historical narrative or episode. See also ISTORIA.

S T R I AT I O N . The web of gold lines that decorate the drapery in Byzan-
tine icons and in the Italian religious images that they inspired. For
an example see the robes of the Virgin Mary in Cimabue’s Enthroned
Madonna and Child with Angels and Prophets (fig. 2.10).
STRINGCOURSE. In architecture, a horizontal band decorating and
uniting the surface of a building, as seen in figure 18.57.

STUDIOLO . Italian for “small study,” used to describe the small, specially
decorated chambers in Renaissance PALAZZI where books, works of art,
and objects of historical and scientific interest were kept; see the Studiolo of
Federico da Montefeltro in the Palazzo Ducale, Urbino (fig. 14.31).
STYLOBATE. The platform on which COLUMNS rest. The top step of
Brunelleschi’s Ospedale degli Innocenti (fig. 6.13) is the stylobate.

TABERNACLE. An elegant classicizing frame, usually at least some-
what three-dimensional. For tabernacle windows see figures 18.4, 20.26; for
tabernacle niches see figure 18.11. Also used to describe a shrine intended to
contain the consecrated bread and wine.

TEMPERA. Ground colors mixed with egg yolk; see figure 1.13 for a
diagram of a typical tempera painting. Tempera was widely used for Italian
panel painting before the sixteenth century.

TEMPLE. Non-Christian religious structure.

TERRA-COTTA. Italian word for “baked earth,” a hard glazed or
unglazed earthenware used for sculpture and pottery or as a building mate-
rial. The word can also mean something made of this material or the color
of it — a dull brownish-red. Terra-cotta PUTTI decorate the top of
Donatello’s Annunciation (fig. 10.21).

TERRA VERDE. Italian for “green earth,” the color used for the under-

paint of flesh tones in TEMPERA painting and sometimes as the mam color
for FRESCOES, as in Uccello’s Chiostro Verde frescoes (fig. 11. 4 l
THEATINE ORDER. Founded jointly in 1524 by St. Cajetan and Gio-
vanni Carafa (later Pope Paul IV), and also called the Society of Clerks
Regular, it presented a new model of deportment marked by extreme auster-
ity, a devotion to pastoral work, and a strong emphasis on prayer and
EUCHARISTIC devotion.

TIARA (papal). The pope’s pointed crown, which is surmounted by an orb
and cross. In the early Renaissance it was quite simple, as is shown in Maso
di Banco’s fresco of St. Sylvester (fig. 3.27), but later examples have three
crowned tiers, as in the bottom left of Raphael’s Sistine Madonna tig.
17.53). An emblem of the pope’s sovereign power, the tiara has little sacred
character and is not worn during celebrations of the MASS, at which time
the pope wears a MITRE.

TIE-ROD. An iron rod used structurally to keep the base of an ARCH or
VAULT from spreading. Tie-rods are visible at the Arena Chapel (fig. 3.3),
Florence Cathedral (fig. 2.38), and Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari (fig.
5.15); there is even one in Giovanni Bellini's San Zaccaria altarpiece (fig.
15.1).

TITULUS . Latin term for “inscription,” also the name given to the label
that Pilate ordered to be placed on the cross of Christ (John 19:19-20). In
paintings and sculptures this label often bears the initials INRI. the abbrevi-
ation for Jesus Nazarenus Rex Judacorum — Jesus of Nazareth. King of
the Jews. For examples see paintings by Coppo di Marcovaldo fig.
2.7), Perugino (fig. 14.19), and Mantegna (fig. 15.21). Also known as
a CARTELLINO.

TOGA. Worn by emperors and citizens of ancient Rome, this outer Layer
of clothing was wrapped around the body. Renaissance artists depicted
figures wearing togas when inspired by antiquity or when representing
figures who lived in ancient times; see Nanni di Banco’s Four Crowned
Martyrs (fig. 7.15).

TONDO . Italian term for circular painting or RELIEF; see Veneziano’s
Adoration of the Magi (fig. 11.7) and Michelangelo’s Doni Madonna (fig.
16.39).

TRANSEPT. In a cross-shaped Christian church, the cross-arms placed
perpendicular to the NAVE. The transepts usually separate the NAVE from
the CHANCEL or APSE; see the plans in figures 6.19, 10.8.
TRANSVERSALS. In a scientific perspective composition, the horizon-
tal lines that run parallel to the picture plane and intersect the ORTHOGO-
NALS. The transversals are clearly visible in the piazza in Perugino’s Christ
Giving the Keys to St. Peter (fig. 14.16). For diagrams see figures 6. 5-6. 6.
TRAVERTINE. A light-colored porous limestone used in Italy, espe-
cially Rome, for building. The exteriors of St. Peter’s and of the Palazzo dei
Conservatori on the Capitoline are largely of travertine; see figures 20.10,
20.14.

TRECENTO. Italian word for three hundred, used to refer to the
1300s — the fourteenth century.

TRI GLYPH. In the DORIC ORDER, the element in the FRIEZE that
seems to be composed of three vertical rectangles, as seen in figure 18.61.
TRIPTYCH. An ALTARPIECE or devotional object consisting of three
sections; see Nardo’s Madonna and Child with Saints (fig. 5.7) and also
figures 4.26, 8.5.

TROMPE L’OEIL. From the French for “fool/ trick the eye,” — an illu-
sionistic painting or, much less frequently, sculpture, that emphasizes natu-
ralistic effects to convince the viewer that the object or scene represented is
real and not painted or sculpted, as in Mantegna’s Camera picta (fig. 15.26),
a page from a book (fig. 15.52), or Veronese’s frescoes in the Villa Barbaro
at Maser (fig. 19.49).

TUSCAN ORDER. See ORDER (architectural).

ULTRAMARINE. An intense blue pigment made from pulverized lapis
lazuli, a semiprecious stone found in the Near East. Documents of commis-
sion often specified that painters use ultramarine for such important areas as
the Virgin Mary’s mantle.

GLOSSARY • 699

VAULT. A structural system based on the ARCH and including the
BARREL VAULT, GROIN VAULT, RIBBED VAULT, and DOME.
VICES. Coming from the same tradition as the VIRTUES, and frequently
paired with them, the vices are more variable but usually include Pride,
Avarice, Wrath, Gluttony, and Lust. Others such as Folly, Inconstancy, and
Injustice are selected to make a total of seven. Seven virtues and seven vices
are paired in the bottom register of Giotto’s Arena Chapel (figs. 3.4-3.5,
3.15-3.17).

V I RT U E S . Divided into the three Theological Virtues of Faith, Hope, and
Charity, and the four Cardinal Virtues of Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, and
Temperance. As with the VICES, the allegorical representation of the virtues
as human figures in the Renaissance derives from a long medieval tradition
in manuscripts and sculpture and from such literary sources as the Psy-
cho machia of Prudentius and writings of St. Augustine, with their commen-
taries. Seven virtues and seven vices are paired in the bottom register of
Giotto’s Arena Chapel ifigs. 3.4, 3.15-3.17).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The categories below are intended to be helpful, but because of limited space
books are listed only once even though they may be related to two or more
categories. Additional bibliographies in greater depth can be found in virtu-
ally all the sources listed here. Electronic sources for periodical articles,
which often offer important new ideas about the period and its artists,
include Art Abstracts or Art Full Text (for articles from 1984 to the
present). Art Index Retrospective (articles from 1929 to 1983), the Avery
Index to Architecture Periodicals (some articles in full text, with some
coverage back to 1860), and the Bibliography of the History of Art (arti-
cles from 1973 to the present). The Grove Dictionary of Art is an excel-
lent source for bibliography and is also available in a regularly updated
online edition in many libraries through a suite of databases offered by
Oxford Art Online.

I. GENERAL SURVEYS

ADAMS, LAURIE SCHNEIDER. Italian Renaissance Art. Boulder, Colo.:
Westview, 2001.

BRADSHAW, MARILYN. Italian Renaissance Art: A Sourcebook. Upper
Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson-Prentice Hall, 2009.

CAMPBELL, GORDON. Renaissance Art and Architecture. New York:
Oxford University Press, 2005.

GRAHAM-DIXON, ANDREW. Renaissance . Berkeley: University of Cali-
fornia Press, 2000.

PAOLETTI, JOHN T., and GARY M. RADKE. Art, Power, and Patronage
in Renaissance Italy. 3d ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2005.

WOODS, KIM M., CAROL M. RICHARDSON, and ANGELIKI LYM-
BEROPOULOU. Renaissance Art Reconsidered: Making Renaissance
Art, Locating Renaissance Art, Viewing Renaissance Art. 3 vols. New
Haven: Yale University Press, 2007.

n. BIBLIOGRAPHIES

DUNKELMAN, MARTHA LEVINE. Central Italian Painting, 1400-1465:
An Annotated Bibliography. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1986.

KARP1NSKI, CAROLINE. Italian Printmaking, Fifteenth and Sixteenth
Centuries: An Annotated Bibliography. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1987.

ROSENBERG, CHARLES M. Fifteenth -Century North Italian Painting and
Drawing: An Annotated Bibliography. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1986.

STUBBLEBINE, JAMES H. Dugento Painting: An Annotated Bibliography.
Boston: G. K. Hall, 1983.

WILK, SARAH BLAKE. Fifteenth-Century Central Italian Sculpture: An
Annotated Bibliography. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1986.

VOLGARE . Italian word for vulgar or “of the people,” used to denote
the developing Italian language as distinct from Latin.

VOLUTE. Ornament resembling a rolled scroll. Especially prominent on
CAPITALS of the IONIC and COMPOSITE ORDERS; see figures 6 15,
9.7, 19.62, 20.51.

VULGATE. The Latin version of the Bible that St. Jerome prepared at the
end of the fourth century CE.

WASH. A broad thin layer of diluted pigment or ink used to create
shadows in some drawings, as in Leonardo da Vinci’s preparatory drawing
of the Adoration of the Magi (fig. 16.17). Also refers to a drawing made in
this technique.

WOODBLOCK PRINT. A PRINT made when a wooden block pre-
pared with a design is inked and pressed onto a sheet or paper or some other
material. When a woodblock print is made using several blocks inked in dif-
ferent colors, it is known as a CHIAROSCURO WOODCUT.

III. PRIMARY SOURCES: ANTHOLOGIES

CHAMBERS, DAVID. Patrons and Artists in the Italian Renaissance.

Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, 1971.

COLE, MICHAEL, ed. Sixteenth -Century Italian Art. Oxford: Blackwell,
2006.

GILBERT, CREIGHTON E. Italian Art , 1400-1500: Sources and Docu-
ments in the History of Art. Evanston, 111.: Northwestern University Press,
1992.

GLASSER, HANNELORE. Artists' Contracts of the Early Renaissance.
New York: Garland, 1977.

HOLT, ELIZABETH, ed. Literary Sources of Art History. Princeton: Prince-
ton University Press, 1947 (paperback edition entitled A Documentary
History of Art).

KLEIN, ROBERT, and HENRI ZERNER. Italian Art, 1500-1600: Sources
and Documents in the History of Art. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice
Hall, 1966.

RICHARDSON, CAROL M., KIM W. WOODS, and MICHAEL W.
FRANKLIN. Renaissance Art Reconsidered: An Anthology of Primary
Sources. Oxford: Blackwell, 2007.

WALD MAN, LOUIS A. Baccio Bandinelli and Art at the Medici Court: A
Corpus of Early Modern Sources. Philadelphia: American Philosophical
Society, 2004.

IV. PRIMARY SOURCES: WRITINGS BY RENAISSANCE
INDIVIDUALS

ALBERTI, LEONBATTISTA. On Painting. Ed. Martin Kemp; trans. Cecil
Grayson. London: Penguin, 1991.

. On Painting and on Sculpture, The Latin Texts of De Pictura and De

Statua. Ed. Cecil Grayson. London: Phaidon, 1972.

. Ten Books on Architecture. Ed. J. Rykwert; trans. J. Leoni. London:

Tiranti, 1955.

ANTONINE OF FLORENCE, SAINT. Lettere. Florence, 1736. Reprint.
Florence: Tipografica Barbera, Bianchi, 1859.

. Opera a benvivere. Venice, 1578. Reprint. Florence: Libreria editrice

fiorentina, 1923.

. Opus chronicorum. Venice, [1480?]; Lyons, 1587.

. Summa theologica. Venice, 1480. Reprint. Verona, 1740. Reprint.

Graz: Akademische Druck und Verlagsanstalt, 1959.

BAROCCHI, PAOLA. Trattati d’arte del Cinquecento fra manierismo e
controri forma. 3 vols. Bari: Laterza, 1960-62.

BORGHINI, RAFFAELLO. Raffaeollo Bor gh ini’s II Riposo. Trans, and ed.

Lloyd Ellis Jr. Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2008.
CASTIGLIONE, BALDASSARE. The Book of the Courtier. Trans. L. E.

Opdycke. New York: Scribner’s, 1903.

CELLINI, BENVENUTO. The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini. Trans.

700 • BIBLIOGRAPHY

George Bull. London: Penguin, 1998.

CENNINI, CENNINO. The Craftsman's Handbook (II libro dell’arte).
Trans. D. V. Thompson, Jr. New York: Dover, 1954.

CONDIVI, ASCANIO. The Life of Michelangelo. Ed. Hellmut Wohl; trans.
Alice Sedgwick Wohl. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press,
1976.

FIL ARETE (ANTONIO AVERLINO). Treatise on Architecture. Trans. J. R.
Spencer. 2 vols. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965.

GHIBERTI, LORENZO. I Commentarii. Ed. Lorenzo Bartoli. Florence:
Giunti, 1998.

LEONARDO DA VINCI. Leonardo da Vinci on Painting: A Lost Book
(Libro A). Ed. C. Pedretti. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1964.

. Leonardo on Painting: An Anthology of Writings by Leonardo da

Vinci with a Selection of Documents Relating to His Career as an Artist.
Eds. Martin Kemp and Margaret Walker. New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1989.

. The Literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci. Eds. J. P. Richter and Carlo

Pedretti. 2 vols. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977.

, The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci. Ed. E. MacCurdy. New York:

G. Braziller, 1955.

. Treatise on Painting . Trans, and annotated by A. P. McMahon. 2 vols.

Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1956.

MANETTI, ANTONIO DI TUCCIO. The Life of Brunelleschi by Antonio
di Tuccio Manetti . Ed. Howard Saalman. University Park: Pennsylvania
State University Press, 1970.

MARTINI, FRANCESCO DI GIORGIO. Trattati di architettura, ingegne-
ria e arte militare. Ed. C. Maltese. 2 vols. Milan: II Polifilo, 1967.

MICHELANGELO. Complete Poems and Selected Letters of Michelangelo.
Ed. R. N. Linscott; trans. C. Gilbert. 2d ed. New York: Random House,
1965.

. The Letters of Michelangelo. Ed. and trans. E. H. Ramsden. Palo Alto,

Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1963.

. The Poetry of Michelangelo. Ed. James Saslow. New Haven: Yale

University Press, 1991.

PALLADIO, ANDREA. I quattro libri delP architettura. Venice, 1570.
Facsimile reprint, Milan: Hoepli, 1951. Reprint. Trans. Robert Tavernor
and Richard Schofield. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997.

PICCOLOMINI, ENEA SILVIO. I Commentari. Ed. Mino Marchetti.
2 vols. Siena: Cantagalli, 1997.

RIDOLFI, CARLO. The Life of Titian. Ed. Julia Conaway Bondanella;
trans. Julia Conaway Bondanella and Peter Bondanella. University Park:
Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996.

SERLIO, SEBASTIANO. Sebastiano Serlio on Architecture. Trans. Vaughan
Hart and Peter Hicks. 2 vols. New Haven: Yale University Press,
1996-2001.

VASARI, GIORGIO. Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors, and
Architects. Trans. G. du C. De Vere. 10 vols. London: Medici Society,
1912-15.

. Vasari on Technique. Ed. G. B. Brown; trans. L. S. Maclehose. New

York: Dover, 1960.

VIGNOLA, GIACOMO BAROZZI DA. Regola delli cinque ordini di
architettura. Rome, 1562.

V. THEORY

BLUNT, ANTHONY. Artistic Theory in Italy, 1450-1600. Oxford: Claren-
don Press, 1966.

EDGERTON, SAMUEL Y. The Heritage of Giotto’s Geometry: Art and
Science on the Eve of the Scientific Revolution. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell
University Press, 1991.

. The Renaissance Rediscovery of Linear Perspective. New York: Basic

Books, 1975.

ELKINS, JAMES, AND ROBERT WILLIAMS. Renaissance Theory. New
York: Routledge, 2008.

FREEDBERG, DAVID. The Power of Images. Chicago: University of

Chicago Press, 1989.

GILL, MEREDITH J. Augustine in the Italian Renaissance: Art and Philo-
sophy from Petrarch to Michelangelo. New York: Cambridge University-
Press, 2005.

PANOFSKY, ERWIN. Meaning in the Visual Arts . Garden Cin. N.Y.:
Doubleday, 1957.

. Studies in Iconology: Humanistic Themes in the Art of the Renais-
sance. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1939.

ROSKILL, MARK W. Dolce’s Aretino and Venetian Art Theory of the
Cinquecento. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000.

SUMMERS, DAVID. The Judgment of Sense. Princeton: Princeton Univer-
sity Press, 1987.

. Michelangelo and the Language of Art. Princeton: Princeton Univer-
sity Press, 1981.

WILLIAMS, ROBERT. Art Theory and Culture in Sixteenth-Century Italy:
From Techne to Metatechne. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1997.

WOHL, HELLMUT. Aesthetics in Italian Renaissance Art. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1999.

VI. ITALIAN ART AND ITS SOCIAL, HISTORICAL, AND
CULTURAL BACKGROUND

AJMAN-WOLLHEIM, MARTA and FLORA DENNIS. At Home in
Renaissance Florence. London: V & A Publications, 2006.

AMES-LEWIS, FRANCIS. The Intellectual Life of the Early Renaissance
Artist. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000.

, and ANKA BEDNAREK, eds. Decorum in Renaissance Narrative Art .

London: Birkbeck College, 1992.

, and MARY ROGERS, eds. Concepts of Beauty in Renaissance Art.

Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998.

ANDERSON, KIRSTI. The Geometry of an Art: the History of the Mathe-
matical Theory of Perspective from Alberti to Monge. London: Springer,
2007.

ANDREWS, LEW. Story and Space in Renaissance Art: The Rebirth of
Continuous Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

ARNOLD, LAUREN. Princely Gifts and Papal Treasures: The Franciscan
Mission to China and Its Influence on the Art of the West, 1250-1350.
San Francisco: Desiderata Press, 1999.

BAILEY, GAUVIN ALEXANDER, PAMELA M. JONES, FRANCO
MORMANDO, and THOMAS W. WORCESTER, eds. Hope and
Healing: Painting in Italy in a Time of Plague, 1500-1800. Ex. Cat:
Worcester Art Museum, in association with University of Chicago Press.
2005.

BARKAN, LEONARD. Unearthing the Past: Archeology and Aesthetics in
the Making of Renaissance Culture . New Haven: Yale University* Press,
1999.

BARKER, EMMA, NICK WEBB, and KIM WOODS. The Changing Status
of the Artist. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999.

BAROLSKY, PAUL. Faun in the Garden: Michelangelo and the Poetic Origins
of Italian Renaissance Art. University Park: Pennsylvania State University
Press, 1994.

. Giotto’s Father and the Family of Vasari's Lives. University Park:

Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991.

. Infinite Jest: Wit and Humor in Italian Renaissance Art. Columbia,

Mo.: University of Missouri Press, 1978.

. Michelangelo’s Nose: A Myth and Its Maker. University Park: Pennsyl-
vania State University Press, 1990.

. Walter Pater’s Renaissance. University Park: Pennsylvania State Uni-
versity Press, 1987.

. Why Mona Lisa Smiles and Other Tales by Vasari. University Park:

Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991.

BAX AND ALL, MICHAEL. Giotto and the Orators: Humanist Observers
of Painting in Italy and the Discovery of Pictorial Composition
1300-1450. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971.

BIBLIOGRAPHY * 70 1

. Painting and Experience in Fifteenth -Century Italy: A Primer in the

Social History of Pictorial Style. 2d ed. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1988.

BAYER, ANDREA, ed. Art and Love in Renaissance Italy. New York:
Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2008.

BELL, RUDOLPH M. How To Do It: Guides to Good Living for Renaissance
Italians. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999.

BOBER, PHYLLIS PRAY, and R. O. RUBINSTEIN. Renaissance Artists
and Antique Sculpture: A Handbook of Sources. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1986.

BULL, MALCOLM. The Mirror of the Gods: Classical Mythology in
Renaissance Art. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.

BURCKHARDT, JACOB. The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy.
Trans. S. G. Middlemore. Oxford: Phaidon, 1965.

BURKE, PETER. The European Renaissance: Centres and Peripheries.
Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1998.

. The Fortunes of the Courtier: The European Reception of Castiglione’s

Cortegiano. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1996.

. The Italian Renaissance: Culture and Society in Italy. 2d ed. Princeton:

Princeton University Press, 1999.

CAMPBELL, C. JEAN. The Commonwealth of Nature: Art and Poetic
Community in the Age of Dante. University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State
University Press, 2008.

CAMPBELL, LORNE. Renaissance Portraits. New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1990.

CAMPBELL, STEPHEN J., and STEPHEN MILNER. Artistic Exchange
and Cultural Translation in the Italian Renaissance City. New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2004.

CAMPBELL, STEPHEN J., ed. Arf/sts at Court: Image Making and Iden-
tity 1 3 00-1 5 00. Boston: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 2005.

. The Cabinet of Eros: Renaissance Mythological Paintings and the

Studiolo of Isabella d’Este. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004.

CANNON, JOANNA, and BETH WILLIAMSON, eds. Art , Politics, and
Civic Religion in Central Italy, 1261-1352. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000.

CARMAN, CHARLES H. Images of Humanist Ideals in Italian Renaissance
Art. Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 2000.

CASSIDY, BRENDAN. Politics, Civic Ideals, and Sculpture in Italy, c.
1240-1400. London: Harvey Miller, 2007.

CIAPELLI, GIOVANNI, and PATRICIA LEE RUBIN. Art, Memory, and
Family in Renaissance Florence. New York: Cambridge University Press,
2000.

COLE, ALISON. Virtue and Magnificence: Art of the Italian Renaissance
Courts. New York: Abrams, 1995.

COLE, BRUCE. Italian Art, 1250—1550: The Relation of Renaissance Art
to Life and Society. New York: Harper and Row, 1987.

. The Renaissance Artist at Work, from Pisano to Titian. New York:

Harper and Row, 1983.

COLE, MICHAEL, and MARY PARDO, eds. Inventions of the Studio,
Renaissance to Romanticism. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press, 2005.

CONNELL, WILLIAM J., ed. Society and Individual in Renaissance
Florence. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002.

CORNELISON, SALLY J., and SCOTT B. MONTGOMERY, eds. Images,
Relics, and Devotional Practices in Medieval and Renaissance Italy. Tempe,
Ariz.: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2006.

COSGROVE, DENIS. The Palladian Landscape: Geographical Change and
Its Cultural Representations in Sixteenth-Century Italy. University Park,
Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993.

CRANSTON, JODI. The Poetics of Portraiture in the Italian Renaissance.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

CURRIE, ELIZABETH. Inside the Renaissance House. London: Victoria
and Albert Museum, 2006.

DEMPSEY, CHARLES. Inventing the Renaissance Putto. Chapel Hill:
University of North Carolina Press, 2001.

DERBES, ANNE. Picturing the Passion in Late Medieval Italy: Narrative
Painting, Franciscan Ideologies, and the Levant. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1996.

DUITS, REMBRANDT. Gold Brocade and Renaissance Painting: A Study
in Material Culture. London: Pindar Press, 2008.

EISENBICHLER, KONRAD. The Cultural World of Eleonora da Toledo:
Duchess of Florence and Siena. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004.

EMISON, PATRICIA. Low and High Style in Italian Renaissance Art. New
York: Garland, 1997.

FI O RANI, FRANCESCA. The Marvel of Maps: Art, Cartography, and Pol-
itics in Renaissance Italy. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005.

GO LDTH WAITE, RICHARD A. Wealth and the Demand for Art in Italy
1300-1600. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993.

GOMBRICH, ERNST H. Norm and Form: Studies in the Art of the Renais-
sance. London: Phaidon, 1966.

GOWANS, KENNETH, and SHERYL E. REISS. The Pontificate of
Clement VII: History, Politics, Culture. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005.

GRIECO, ALLEN, MICHAEL ROCKE, and FIORELLA GIOFFREDI
SUPERBI, eds. The Italian Renaissance in the Twentieth Century.
Florence: Olschki, 2002.

HALE, J. R. Artists and Warfare in the Renaissance. New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1990.

HARRIES, KARSTEN. Infinity and Perspective. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT
Press, 2001.

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MCIVER, KATHERINE A. Women, Art, and Architecture in Northern
Italy, 1520-1580. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006.

PANIZZA, LETIZIA, ed. Women in Italian Renaissance Culture and Society.
Oxford: European Humanities Research Centre, 2000.

PEARSON, ANDREA. Women and Portraits in Early Modern Europe.
Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008.

REISS, SHERYL E., and DAVID G. WILKINS, eds. Beyond Isabella:
Secular Women Patrons of Art in Renaissance Italy. Kirksville, Mo.:
Truman State University Press, 2001.

ROBERTS, ANN. Dominican Women and Renaissance Art: the Convent of
San Domenico of Pisa . Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008.

RUSSELL, H. DIANE, with BERNADINE BARNES. Eva/Ave: Woman in
Renaissance and Baroque Prints. Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of
Art, 1990.

THOMAS, AN ABEL. Art and Piety in the Female Religious Communities
of Renaissance Italy: Iconography, Space, and Religious Woman's

Perspective. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

TINAGLI, PAOLO. Women in Italian Renaissance Art: Gender, Represen-
tation, Identity. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997.

EX. PATRONAGE

BOURDA, LOUISE. The Francsicans and Art Patronage in Late Medieval
Italy. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

BURKE, JILL. Changing Patrons: Social Identity and the Visual Arts in
Renaissance Florence. University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University
Press, 2004.

CHAMBERS, DAVID. Patrons and Artists in the Italian Renaissance.
Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, 1971.

EISENBICHLER, KONRAD, ed. The Cultural Politics of Duke Cosimo I
de‘ Medici. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001.

FROMMEL, CHRISTOPH LUITPOLD. Architettura e commitenza da
Alberti a Bramante. Florence: Olschki, 2006.

GAM RATH, HELGE. Farnese: Pomp, Power, and Politics in Renaissance
Italy. Rome: L’Erma di Bretschneider, 2007.

GOFFEN, RONA. Piety and Patronage in Renaissance Venice: Bellini,
Titian, and the Franciscans. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986.

JACKS, PHILIP, and WILLIAM CAFERRO. The Spinelli of Florence: For-
tunes of a Renaissance Merchant Family. University Park, Pa.: Pennsylva-
nia State University Press, 2001.

KENT, DALE. Cosimo de ’ Medici and the Florentine Renaissance: The
Patron’s Oeuvre. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000.

KENT, F. W., and PATRICIA SIMMONS, with J. C. EADE. Patronage, Art,
and Society in Renaissance Italy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987.

KING, CATHERINE. Renaissance Women Patrons: Wives and Widows in
Italy, c. 1300-1550. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998.

NELSON, JONATHAN and RICHARD J. ZECKHAUSER. The Patron’s
Payoff: Conspicuous Commissions in Italian Renaissance Art. Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2008.

REISS, SHERYL E., and DAVID G. WILKINS, eds. Beyond Isabella:
Secular Women Patrons of Art in Renaissance Italy. Kirksville, Mo.:
Truman State University Press, 2001.

RICHARDS, JOHN. Altichiero: An Artist and His Patrons in the Italian
Trecento. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

ROBERTSON, CLAIRE. II Gran Cardinale: Alessandro Farnese, Patron of
the Arts. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992.

VERSTEGEN, IAN F. Patronage and Dynasty: The Rise of the della Rovere
in Renaissance Italy. Kirksville, Mo.: Truman State University Press, 2007.

WILKINS, DAVID G., and REBECCA L. WILKINS. The Search for a
Patron in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin
Mellen Press, 1996.

ZERVAS, DIANE FINIELLO. The Parte Guelfa, Brunelleschi, and
Donatello. Locust Valley, N.Y.: J. J. Augustin, 1988.

X. ARCHITECTURE AND LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE

ACKERMAN, JAMES S. The Villa: Form and Ideology of Country Houses.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990.

BURROUGHS, CHARLES. The Italian Renaissance Palace Facade: Struc-
tures of Authority, Surfaces of Sense. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2002.

CLARKE, GEORGIA. Roman House-Renaissance Palaces: Inventing
Antiquity in Fifteenth -Century Italy. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2003.

COFFIN, DAVID R. Magnificent Buildings, Splendid Gardens. Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2008.

DEHIO, G. and G. VON BEZOLD. Die Kirchliche Baukunst des Abend-
landes. Stuttgart: Arnold Bergstrasser, 1884-1901.

FROMMEL, CHRISTOPH LUITPOLD. Architecture of the Italian Renais-
sance. London: Thames &c Hudson, 2007.

FURNARI, MICHELE. Formal Design in Renaissance Architecture: From
Brunelleschi to Palladio. New York: Rizzoli, 1995.

70 6 • BIBLIOGRAPHY

GIANETTO, RAFF A ELLA FABIANI. Medici Gardens: From Making to
Design. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008.
GOLDTHWAITE, RICHARD A. The Building of Renaissance Florence: An
Economic and Social History. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,
1980.

HART, VAUGHN, and PETER HICKS, eds. Paper Palaces: The Rise of the
Renaissance Architectural Treatise. New Haven: Yale University Press,
1998.

HEYDENREICH, LUDWIG H. Architecture in Italy, 1400-1500. New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1996.

LAZZARO, CLAUDIA. The Italian Renaissance Garden. New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1990.

LOTZ, WOLFGANG. Architecture in Italy, 1500-1600. New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1995.

MARKSCHIES, ALEXANDER. Icons of Renaissance Architecture.
Munich: Prestel, 2003.

MILLON, HENRY A., and VITTORIO MAGNAGO LAMPUGNANI,
eds. The Renaissance from Brunelleschi to Michelangelo: The Represen-
tation of Architecture. Milan: Bompiani, 1994.

PAYNE, ALINA A. The Architectural Treatise in the Italian Renaissance.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

SAALMAN, HOWARD. The Transformation of Buildings and the City in
the Renaissance, 1300-1500. Champlain, N.Y.: Astrion, 1996.
SCHLIMME, HERMANN, ed. Practice and Science in Early Modern
Italian Building: Towards an Epistemic History of Architecture. Milan:
Electa, 2005.

SMITH, CHRISTINE. Architecture in the Culture of Early Humanism;

Ethics , Aesthetics , and Eloquence. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992.
TAFURI, MANFREDO. Interpreting the Renaissance: Princes , Cities,
Architects. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

VAN DER REE, PAUL, GERRIT SMIENK, and CLEMENS STEEN-
BERGER. Italian Villas and Gardens. Munich: Prestel, 1992.

WESTFALL, CARROLL WILLIAM. In This Most Perfect Paradise: Alberti,
Nicholas V, and the Invention of Conscious Urban Planning in Rome,
1447-55. University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1974.
WITTKOWER, RUDOLF. Architectural Principles in the Age of Human-
ism. 3d ed. London: Tiranti, 1962.

XI. PAINTING

BERENSON, BERNARD. Italian Painters of the Renaissance. Rev. ed.
London: Phaidon, 1969.

. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance. 7 vols. London: Phaidon, 1957-68.

BO MB ERG, DAVID, ed. Underdrawings in Renaissance Paintings. New
Haven: Yale University Press, 2002.

BOMFORD, DAVID, ed. Italian Painting Before 1400. London: National
Gallery Publications, 1989.

, JILL DUNKERTON, DILLIAN GORDON, and ASHOK ROY. Art

in the Making: Italian Painting Before 1400. London: National Gallery
Publications, 1989.

BORSOOK, EVE. The Mural Painters of Tuscany from Cimabue to Andrea
del Sarto. 2d ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979.

BOSKOVITS, MIKLOS and DAVID ALAN BROWN. Italian Paintings of
the Fifteenth Century (The Collections of the National Gallery of Art,
Systematic Catalogue). New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
BURCKHARDT, JACOB. The Altarpiece in Renaissance Italy. Ed. Peter
Humfrey. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.

CAST, DAVID. The Calumny of Apelles: A Study in the Humanist Tradi-
tion. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981.

CHRISTIANSEN, KEITH, et al. From Filippo Lippi to Piero della Francesca:
Fra Carnevale and the Making of a Renaissance Master. New York: Met-
ropolitan Museum of Art, in association with Yale University Press, 2005.
CRANSTON, JODI. The Poetics of Portraiture in the Italian Renaissance .

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

DUNKERTON, JILL, SUSAN FOISTER, and NICHOLAS PENNY. Diirer

to Veronese: Sixteenth-Century Painting in the National Gallery. New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1999.

DUNKERTON, JILL, ed. Giotto to Diirer: Early Renaissance Painting in
the National Gallery. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991.

FREEDBERG, S. J. Painting in Italy, 1500—1600. Harmondsworth, Middle-
sex: Penguin, 1990.

. Painting of the High Renaissance in Rome and Florence. New York:

Harper and Row, 1972.

GARDNER VON TEUFFEL, CHRISTA. From Duccio's Maestd to
Raphael s Transfiguration: Italian Altarpieces and their Settings. London:
Pindar Press, 2005.

GARRISON, EDWARD B. Italian Romanesque Panel Painting: An Illus-
trated Index. Florence: Olschki, 1949. Reprint. New York: Hacker Art
Books, 1976.

GOFFEN, RON A. Renaissance Rivals: Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael,
Titian. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002.

GORDON, DILLIAN. National Gallery, London: The Fifteenth-Century
Italian Paintings. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003.

HALL, MARCIA B. Color and Meaning: Practice and Theory in Renais-
sance Painting. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.

. Color and Technique in Renaissance Painting. Locust Valley, N.Y.: J.

J. Augustin, 1987.

HOENIGER, CATHLEEN SARA. Renovation of Painting in Tuscany.
1200-1500. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

HORN IK, HEIDI J., and MIKEAL C. PARSON. Illuminating Luke : The
Public Ministry of Christ in Italian Renaissance and Baroque Painting.
Harrisburg, Pa.: T & T Clark International, 2005.

. Illuminating Luke: The Infancy Narrative in Italian Renaissance
Painting. Harrisburg, Pa.: Trinity Press International, 2003.

HUMFREY, PETER, and MARTIN KEMP, eds. The Altarpiece in the
Renaissance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.

LAVIN, MARILYN ARONBERG. The Place of Narrative: Mural Decora-
tion in Italian Churches, 431-1600. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1990.

MEISS, MILLARD. The Great Age of Fresco: Discoveries. Recoveries, and
Revivals. New York: G. Braziller, 1970.

. Painting in Florence and Siena After the Black Death. Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1951.

NEWBERRY, TIMOTHY J., GEORGE BISACCA, and LAURENCE B.
KANTER. Italian Renaissance Frames. New York: Metropolitan
Museum of Art, 1990.

PENNY, NICHOLAS. National Gallery, London: The Sixteenth-Century
Italian Paintings, Vol. 1 . New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004.

POESCHKE, JOACHIM. Italian Frescoes: The Age of Giotto. New York:
Abbeville Press, 2005.

PUTTFARKEN, THOMAS. The Discovery of Pictorial Composition: Theories
of Visual Order in Painting, 1400—1800. New Haven: Yale University
Press, 2000.

ROETTGEN, STEFFI. Italian Frescoes. 2 vols. New York: Abbeville,
1996-97.

SINISGALLI, ROCCO. A History of the Perspective Scene from the Renais-
sance to the Baroque: Borromini in Four Dimensions. Trans. Lasse
Hodne. Florence: Cadmo, 2000.

SMART, ALASTAIR. The Dawn of Italian Painting, c. 1250-1400. Ithaca,
N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1978.

THOMAS, ANABEL. Painter’s Practice in Renaissance Tuscany. Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

WHITE, JOHN. The Birth and Rebirth of Pictorial Space. London: Faber
and Faber, 1987.

ZAMPETTI, PIETRO. Paintings from the Marches : Gentile to Raphael.
London: Phaidon, 1971.

XII. SCULPTURE

AMES-LEWIS, FRANCIS. Tuscan Marble Carving 1250-1350. Aldershot:

BIBLIOGRAPHY

707

Ashgate, 1997.

COOPER, DONAL, AND MARIKA LEINO, eds. Depth of Field: Relief
Sculpture in Renaissance Italy . Bern: Peter Lang, 2007.

MCHAM, SARAH BLAKE, ed. Looking at Italian Renaissance Sculpture .

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

MORSCHECK, CHARLES R. Relief Sculpture for the Facade of the
Certosa di Pavia , 1473-1499. New York: Garland, 1978.

MOSKOWITZ, ANITA FIDERER. Italian Gothic Sculpture, c. 1250-1400.

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.

MOTTURE, PETA, ed. Large Bronzes in the Renaissance . Washington,

D. C.: National Gallery of Art, 2003.

PENNY, NICHOLAS, and EIKE D. SCHMIDT, eds. Collecting Sculpture in
Early Modem Europe . Washington. D.C., National Gallery of Art, 2008.
POPE-HENNESSY. JOHN. Italian Gothic Sculpture. 4th ed. London:
Phaidon, 1996.

. Italian High Renaissance and Baroque Sculpture. 4th ed. London:

Phaidon. 1996.

. Italian Renaissance Sculpture. 4th ed. London: Phaidon, 1996.

RADCLIFFE, ANTHONY and NICHOLAS PENNY. Art of the Renais-
sance Bronze: The Robert H. Smith Collection. Expanded edition.
London: Philip Wilson, 2004.

SC HER, STEPHEN K., ed. Perspectives on the Renaissance Medal. New
York: Garland, 2000.

SEYMOUR, CHARLES. Sculpture in Italy , 1400-1500. Harmondsworth:
Penguin, 1966.

PINCUS, DEBRA, ed. Small Bronzes in the Renaissance (Studies in the
History of Art 62). Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 2001.

Xffl. DRAWING

AMES-LEWIS, FRANCIS. Drawing in Early Renaissance Italy. New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1981.

. Drawing in the Italian Renaissance Workshop. London: Victoria and

Albert Museum, 1983.

BAMBACH, CARMEN C. Drawing and Painting in the Italian Renaissance
Workshop: Theory and Practice, 1300-1600. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1999.

BJURSTROM, PER. Italian Drawings from the Collection of Giorgio
Vasari. Stockholm: Nationalmuseum, 2001.

CLEAVE, CLAIRE VAN. Master Drawings of the Italian Renaissance.

Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2007.

FAIR BAIRN, LYNDA. Italian Renaissance Drawings. 2 vols. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1998.

Italian Drawings in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British
Museum. 4 vols. London: British Museum. Vol. I: POPHAM, ARTHUR

E. , and PHILIP POUNCEY. The 14th and 15th Centuries. 2 vols. 1950;
Vol. II: WILDE, JOHANNES. Michelangelo and His Studio. 1953; Vol.
Ill: POUNCEY, PHILIP, and JOHN A. GERE. Raphael and His Circle.
2 vols. 1962; Vol. IV: POPHAM, ARTHUR E. Artists Working in Parma
in the 16th Century. 2 vols. 1967.

PERCY, ANN, and MIMI CAZORT. Italian Master Drawings at the
Philadelphia Museum of Art. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art,
2004.

POPHAM, ARTHUR E. The Italian Drawings of the XV and XVI Cen-
turies in the Collection of His Majesty the King at Windsor Castle.
London: Phaidon, 1949.

TIETZE, HANS, and ERICA TIETZE-CONRAT. The Drawings of the
Venetian Painters in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries. Locust Valley,
N.Y.: J. J. Augustin, 1944.

XTV. OTHER ARTS

CAMPBELL, THOMAS P. et al. Tapestry in the Renaissance: Art and Mag-
nificence. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2002.

Early Italian Engravings from the National Gallery of Art. Washington,
D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1973.

KRISTELLER, PAUL. Early Florentine Woodcuts, with an Annotated List
of Florentine Illustrated Books. London: Holland, 1968.

LAD IS, ANDREW. Italian Renaissance Maiolica from Southern Collec-
tions. Athens: Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia, 1989.

LANDAU, DAVID, and PETER PARSHALL. The Renaissance Print,
1470-1550. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994.

LINCOLN, EVELYN. The Invention of the Italian Renaissance Printmaker.
New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000.

MARCHINI, GIUSEPPE. Italian Stained Glass Windows. New York: Abrams,
1956.

MUSACCHIO, JACQUELINE MARIE. Marvels of Majolica: Italian
Renaissance Ceramics from the Corcoran Gallery of Art Collection.
Charlestown: Bunker Hill Publishing, 2004.

PALLADINO, PI A. Treasures of a Lost Art: Italian Manuscript Painting of
the Middle Ages and Renaissance. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003.

PON, LISA. Raphael, Diirer, and Marcantonio Raimondi: Copying and the
Italian Renaissance Print. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004.

REED, SUE WALSH. Italian Etchers of the Renaissance and Baroque.
Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1989.

SARTI, RAFFAELLA. Europe at Home: Family and Material Culture
1500-1800. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002.

SILVER, LARRY, and ELIZABETH WYCKOFF, eds. Grand Scale: Monu-
mental Prints in the Age of Diirer and Titian. New Haven: Yale Univer-
sity Press, 2008.

SYSON, LUKE and DORA THORNTON. Objects of Virtue: Art in
Renaissance Italy. London: British Museum Press, 2001.

WILLIAMS, KIM. Italian Pavements: Patterns in Space. Houston, Tex.:
Anchorage Press, 1997.

XV. ARTISTS

Alberti

BO RSI, FRANCO. Leon Battista Alberti: The Complete Works. New York:
Electa/Rizzoli, 1989.

BULGARELLI, MASSIMO. Leon Battista Alberti e Varchitettura. Milan:
Silvana, 2006.

GRAFTON, ANTHONY. Leon Battista Alberti: Master Builder of the
Italian Renaissance. New York: Hill and Wang, 2000.

JARZOMBEK, MARK. On Leon Battista Alberti: His Literary and Aes-
thetic Theories. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1989.

POESCHKE, JOACIM, and CANDIDA SYNDIKUS, eds. Leon Battista
Alberti: Humanist- Architekt-Kunsttheoretiker. Munster: Rhema, 2007.

TRAVENOR, ROBERT. On Alberti and the Art of Building. New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1998.

Altichiero

RICHARDS, JOHN. Altichiero: An Artist and His Patrons in the Italian
Trecento. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Fra Angelico

BONSANTI, GIORGIO. Beato Angelico: Catalogo completo. Florence:
Octavo, 1998.

COLE, DIANE. Fra Angelico. London: Phaidon, 2008.

GILBERT, CREIGHTON. A Renaissance Image of the End of the World:
Fra Angelico and Signorelli at Orvieto. University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania
State University Press, 2001.

HOOD, WILLIAM. Fra Angelico at San Marco. New Haven: Yale Univer-
sity Press, 1993.

KANTER, LAURENCE B., and PIA PALLADINO, eds. Fra Angelico. New
York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2005.

SPIKE, JOHN. Fra Angelico. New York: Abbeville, 1996.

Sofonisba Anguissola

FERINO-PAGDEN, SYLVIA, and MARIA KUSCHE. Sofonisba Anguis-
sola: A Renaissance Woman. Washington, D.C.: National Museum of
Women in the Arts, 1995.

GREGORI, MINA, ed. Sofonisba Anguissola e le sue sorelle. Milan:
Leonardo arte, 1994.

708 • BIBLIOGRAPHY

PERLINGIERI, ILYA SANDRA. Sofonisba Anguissola: First Great Woman
of the Renaissance. New York: Rizzoli, 1992.

PINESSI, ORIETTA. Sofonisba Anguissola : un pittore alia corte di Filippo
II. Milan: Selene, 1998.

Antonello da Messina

BARBERA, GIOACCHINO, ed. Antonello da Messina. Milan: Electa, 1998.

BARBERA, GIOACCHINO. Antonello da Messina: Sicily’s Renaissance
Master. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005.

BOTTARI, STEFANO. Antonello da Messina. Trans. G. Scaglia. Green-
wich, Conn.: New York Graphic, 1955.

LUCCO, MAURO. Antonello da Messina: l’ opera completa. Milan: Silvana,
2006.

VIGNI, GIORGIO. All the Paintings of Antonello da Messina. Trans. A. F.
O’Sullivan. New York: Hawthorn, 1963.

Arcimboldo

FERINO-PAGDEN, SYLVIA. Arcimboldo: 1526-1593. Milan: Skira, 2008.

Baldovinetti

KENNEDY, RUTH W. Alesso Baldovinetti: A Critical and Historical Study.
New Haven: Yale University Press, 1938.

Barocci

EMILIANI, ANDREA. Federico Barocci: Urbino, 1535-1612. Bologna:
Nuova Alfa, 1985.

LINGO, STUART. Federico Barocci: Allure and Devotion in Late Renais-
sance Painting. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008.

TURNER, NICHOLAS. Federico Barocci. Paris: Vilo, 2000.

Fra Bartolommeo

FISCHER, CHRIS. Fra Bartolommeo, Master Draughtsman of the Renais-
sance. Rotterdam: Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, 1990.

Jacopo Bassano

AIKEMA, BERNARD. Jacopo Bassano and His Public: Moralizing Pictures
in an Age of Reform, c. 1535-1600. Trans. Andrew P. McCormick.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996.

BERDINI, PAOLO. The Religious Art of Jacopo Bassano : Painting as
Visual Exegesis. Cambridge; Cambridge University Press, 1997.

Beccafumi

Domenico Beccafumi e il suo tempo. Milan: Electa, 1990.

TORRITI, PIERO. Beccafumi. Milan: Electa, 1998.

Giovanni Bellini

BATSCHMANN, OSKAR. Giovanni Bellini. London: Reaktion, 2008.

CAMPBELL, CAROLINE, and ALAN CHONG. Bellini and the East. New
Haven: Yale University Press, 2005.

GOFFEN, RON A. Giovanni Bellini. New Haven: Yale University Press,
1989.

, and GIOVANNA NEPI SCIRfe. Il colore ritrovato: Bellini a Venezia.

Milan: Electa, 2000

HUMFREY, PETER. The Cambridge Companion to Giovanni Bellini. Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

KASL, RONDA. Giovanni Bellini and the Art of Devotion. Indianapolis:
Indianapolis Museum of Art, 2004.

TEMPESTINI, ANCHISE. Giovanni Bellini. Milan: Fabbri Editori, 1997.

. Giovanni Bellini. Milan: Electa, 2000.

WIND, EDGAR. Bellini’s Feast of the Gods: A Study in Venetian Human-
ism. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1948.

Jacopo Bellini

EISLER, COLIN T. The Genius of Jacopo Bellini: The Complete Paintings
and Drawings. New York: Abrams, 1989.

Benedetto da Maiano

CARL DORIS. Benedetto da Maiano: A Florentine Sculptor at the Thresh-
old of the High Renaissance. Turnhout: Brepols, 2006.

Bertoldo di Giovanni

DRAPER, JAMES DAVID. Bertoldo di Giovanni , Sculptor of the Medici
Household. Columbia, Mo.: University of Missouri Press, 1992.

Botticelli

BALD INI, UMBERTO, et al. Primavera: The Restoration of Botticellis

Masterpiece. New York: Abrams, 1986.

DEMPSEY, CHARLES. The Portrayal of Love: Botticellis Primavera and
Humanist Culture at the Time of Lorenzo the Magnificent. Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1992.

KANTER, LAURENCE B. Botticelli’s Witness: Changing Style in a Chang-
ing Florence. Boston: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 199”.

LIGHTBOWN, RONALD. Botticelli. 2 vols. Berkeley: Universirv of Cali-
fornia Press, 1978.

. Sandro Botticelli: Life and Work. New York: Abbeville Press. 1989.

LUCINAT, CRISTINA ACIDINI. Botticelli: Allegoric mitologiche. Milan:
Electa, 2001.

ZOLLNER, FRANK. Botticelli: Images of Love and Spring. Munich:
Prestel, 1998.

Bramante

BORSI, FRANCO. Bramante. Milan: Electa, 1989.

BRUSCHI, ARNALDO. Bramante. London: Thames &c Hudson, 1977.

Bronzino

BROCK, MAURICE. Bronzino. Paris: Flammarion, 2002.

COX-RE A RICK, JANET. Bronzino’s Chapel of Eleanora in the Palazzo
Vecchio. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.

MCCORQUODALE, CHARLES. Bronzino. London: Chaucer Press, 2005.

PARKER, DEBORAH. Bronzino: Renaissance Painter as Poet. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Brunelleschi

CONTI, GIUSEPPE. The Cupola of Santa Maria del Fiore as Told by its
Creator ; Filippo Brunelleschi. Livorno: Sillabe, 2005.

FA NELL I, GIOVANNI and MICHELE. Brunelleschi’s Cupola: Past and
Present of an Architectural Masterpiece. Florence: Mandragora, 2006.

GARTNER, PETER J. Filippo Brunelleschi 1377-1446. Cologne: Konemann,
1998.

IPPOLITO, LAMBERTO, and CHIARA PERONI. La Cupola di Santa
Maria del Fiore. Rome: La Nuova Italia Scientifica, 1997.

KING, ROSS. Brunelleschi’s Dome: How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented
Architecture. New York: Walker, 2000.

KLOTZ, HEINRICH. Filippo Brunelleschi: The Early Works and the
Medieval Tradition. London: Academy Editions, 1990.

MANETTI, ANTONIO DI TUCCIO. The Life of Brunelleschi. Ed. Howard
Saalman. University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 19~0.

PRAGER, FRANK D., and GIUSTINA SCAGLIA. Brunelleschi: Studies of
His Technology and Inventions. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 19“0.

SAALMAN, HOWARD. Filippo Brunelleschi: The Buildings. University
Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993.

. Filippo Brunelleschi: The Cupola of Santa Maria del Fiore. London:

Zwemmer, 1980.

Caravaggio

PUGLISI, CATHERINE R. Caravaggio. London: Phaidon, 1998.

VARRIANO, JOHN L. Caravaggio: The Art of Realism. University Park,
Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006.

Carpaccio

BROWN, PATRICIA FORTINI. Venetian Narrative Painting in the Age of
Carpaccio. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988.

HUMFREY, PETER. Carpaccio. London: Chaucer, 2005.

MASON, STEFANIA. Carpaccio: The Major Pictorial Cycles. Milan: Skira,

2000.

SGARBI, VITTORIO. Carpaccio. New York: Abbeville, 1994.

Andrea del Castagno

HORSTER, MARITA. Andrea del Castagno: Complete Edition with a Crit-
ical Catalogue. Oxford: Phaidon, 1980.

SPENCER, JOHN R. Andrea del Castagno and His Patrons. Durham, N.C.:
Duke University Press, 1991.

Pietro Cavallini

HETHERINGTON, PAUL. Pietro Cavallini: A Study in the Art of Late
Medieval Rome. London: Sagittarius Press, 1979.

TOM El, ALESSANDRO. Pietro Cavallini. Milan: Silvana, 2000.

BIBLIOGRAPHY * 709

Cellini

GALLUCCI, MARGARET A. Benvenuto Cellini: Sexuality, Masculinity ,
and Artistic Identity in Renaissance Italy. New York: Palgrave Macmil-
lan, 2003.

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7 I O • BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Andrea and Nino Pisano

MOSKOWITZ, ANITA FIDERER. The Sculpture of Andrea and Nino
Pisano. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.

Nicola and Giovanni Pisano

ANGIOLA, ELOISE. Nicola Pisano: The Pisa Baptistery Pulpit. Ann Arbor.
Mich.: University Microfilms, 1975.

AYRTON, MICHAEL. Giovanni Pisano. London: Thames 8c Hudson, 1969.
CRICHTON, GEORGE H., and ELSIE R. CRICHTON. Nicola Pisano
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University Press, 1938.

MOSKOWITZ, ANITA FIDERER. Nicola and Giovanni Pisano: The
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MOSKOWITZ, ANITA FIDERER. Nicola Pisano's Area di San Dominica and
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Antonio and Piero del Pollaiuolo

ETTLINGER, LEOPOLD D. Antonio and Piero Pollaiuolo. New York:
Phaidon, 1978.

WRIGHT, ALISON. The Pollaiuolo Brothers: The Arts of Florence and
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Pontormo

CLAPP, FREDERICK M. Jacopo Carucci da Pontormo, His Life and Work.

New Haven: Yale University Press, 1916.

COX-REARICK, JANET. The Drawings of Pontormo. 2 vols. Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1964.

. Dynasty and Destiny in Medici Art: Pontormo, Leo X, and the Two

Cosimos. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984.

CROPPER, ELIZABETH. Pontormo: Portrait of a Halberdier. Los Angeles:
Getty Museum, 1997.

NIGRO, SALVATORE S., ed. Pontormo Drawings. New York: Abrams, 1992.
Pordenone

FURLAN, CATERINA. II Pordenone. Milan: Electa, 1998.

Jacopo della Quercia

BECK, JAMES H. Jacopo della Quercia. New York: Columbia University
Press, 1991.

HANSON, ANNE C. Jacopo della Quercia's Fonte Gaia. Oxford: Claren-
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SEYMOUR, CHARLES. Jacopo della Quercia. New Haven: Yale University
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Raphael

AMES-LEWIS, FRANCIS. The Draftsman Raphael. New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1986.

BECK, JAMES. Raphael: The Stanza della Segnatura. New York: Braziller,

BIBLIOGRAPHY * 7 I 3

1993.

BROWN, DAVID ALAN, and JAN VAN NIMMEN. Raphael and the
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CHAPMAN, HUGO, TOM HENRY, and CAROL PIAZZOTTA. Raphael:
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ETTLINGER, LEOPOLD D. Raphael. Oxford: Phaidon, 1987.

FEGHELM, DAGMAR. I, Raphael. New York: Prestel, 2004.

HALL, MARCIA B. After Raphael: Painting in Central Italy in the
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1997.

, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Raphael. New York: Cambridge

University Press, 2005.

JOANNIDES, PAUL. The Drawings of Raphael. Berkeley: University of
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JONES, ROGER, and NICHOLAS PENNY. Raphael. New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1983.

JOOST-GAUG1ER, CHRISTIANE L. Raphael’s Stanza della Segnatura:
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MEYER ZUR CAPELLEN, JURG. Raphael: A Critical Catalogue of Mis
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1999.

PARTRIDGE, LOREN, and RANDOLPH STARN. A Renaissance Like-
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PEDRETTI, CARLO. Raphael: His Life and Work in the Splendors of the
Italian Renaissance. Florence: Giunti, 1989.

SHEARMAN, JOHN. Raphael in Early Modern Sources . New Haven: Yale
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the Tapestries for the Sistine Chapel. London: Phaidon, 1972.

, and MARCIA B. HALL, eds. The Princeton Raphael Symposium:

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Luca della Robbia

POPE-HENNESSY, JOHN. Luca della Robbia. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell
University Press, 1980.

Rosso Fiorentino

CARROLL, EUGENE A. Rosso Fiorentino: Drawings , Prints , and Decora-
tive Arts. Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1987.

FRANKLIN, DAVID. Rosso in Italy. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994.

Sangallo

FROMMEL, CHRISTOPH L., and NICHOLAS ADAMS. The Architec-
tural Drawings of Antonio da Sangallo the Younger and His Circle.
Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1994.

Michele Sanmichele

DAVIES, PAUL, and DAVID HEMSOLL. Michele Sanmichele. Milan:
Electa, 2004.

Jacopo Sansovino

BOUCHER, BRUCE. The Sculpture of Jacopo Sansovino. New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1991.

HOWARD, DEBORAH. Jacopo Sansovino: Architecture and Patronage in
Renaissance Venice. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987.

Andrea del Sarto

NATALI, ANTONIO. Andrea del Sarto. New York: Abbeville, 1999.

Sassetta

ISRAELS, MACHTELT, ed. Sassetta. London: Chatto and Windus, 1939.

POPE-HENNESSY, JOHN. Sassetta ’s Borgo San Sepolcro Altarpiece:
Its Making, Meaning and Function. Florence: I Tatti, 2009.

Savoldo

BOSCHETTO, ANTONIO. Gian Girolamo Savoldo. Milan: Bramante,

1963.

GILBERT, CREIGHTON. The Works of Girolamo Savoldo: The 1955
Dissertation, with Review of Research. New York: Garland, 1986.

Sebastiano del Piornbo

HIRST, MICHAEL. Sebastiano del Piornbo. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1981.

Sebastiano del Piornbo. Milan: Motta, 2008.

Jacopo del Sellaio

CAMPBELL, CAROLINE. Love and Marriage in Renaissance Florence: The
Courtauld Wedding Chests. London: Courtauld Gallery, 2008.

Serlio

FROMMEL, SABINE. Sebastiano Serlio architetto. Milan: Electa, 1998.

Signorelli

GILBERT, CREIGHTON. How Fra Angelico and Signorelli Saw the End of
the World. University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press,
2002.

JAMES, SARA NAIR. Signorelli and Fra Angelico at Orvieto: Liturgy,
Poetry, and a Vision of the End of Time. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003.

KANTER, LAURENCE B., and TOM HENRY. Luca Signorelli: The
Complete Paintings. Milan: Rizzoli, 2002.

RIESS, JONATHAN B. Luca Signorelli: The San Brizio Chapel, Orvieto.
New York: Braziller, 1995.

. The Renaissance Antichrist: Luca Signorelli’s Orvieto Frescoes. Prince-
ton: Princeton University Press, 1995.

Sodotna

HAYUM, ANDRfiE. Giovanni Antonio Bazzi — fC Il Sodoma.” New York:
Garland, 1976.

Tintoretto

NICHOLS, TOM. Tintoretto: Tradition and Identity. London: Reaktion,
1999.

RIDOLFI, CARLO. The Life of Tintoretto and of His Children Domenico
and Marietta. Trans, and intro. Catherine Enggass and Robert Enggass.
University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1984.

ROSAND, DAVID. Painting in Sixteenth -Century Venice: Titian, Veronese,
Tintoretto. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

TIETZE, HANS. Tintoretto: The Paintings and Drawings. New York:
Phaidon, 1948.

VALCANOVER, FRANCESCO. Tintoretto. New York: Abrams, 1985.

Titian

D’ELIA, UNA. The Poetics of Titian’s Religious Paintings. New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2005.

FERINO-PAGDEN, SYLVIA, ed. Late Titian and the Sensuality of Painting.
Venice: Marsilio, 2008.

FREEDMAN, LUBA. Titian’s Portraits Through Aretino’s Lens.
University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995.

GOFFEN, RON A. Titian’s Women. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997.

, ed. Titian’s Venus of Urbino. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

1997.

HOPE, CHARLES et al. Titian. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004.

HUMFREY, PETER. Titian. London: Phaidon, 2007.

HUMFREY, PETER. Titian: The Complete Paintings. Ghent: Ludion, 2007.

JOANNIDES, PAUL. Titian to 1518: The Assumption of Genius. New
Haven: Yale University Press, 2001.

LOH, MARIA H. Titian Remade: Repetition and the Transformation of
Early Modern Italian Art. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2007.

MEILMAN, PATRICIA, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Titian. New
York: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

. Titian and the Altarpiece in Renaissance Venice. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 2000.

ROSAND, DAVID. Painting in Cinquecento Venice: Titian, Veronese,
Tintoretto. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982.

. Titian. New York: Abrams, 1978.

. Titian and the Venetian Woodcut. Washington, D.C.: National Gallery

of Art, 1976.

714 • BIBLIOGRAPHY

WETHEY, HAROLD E. The Paintings of Titian. 3 vols. London: Phaidon,
1969-75.

WOODS-MARSDEN, JOANNA, ed. Titian: Materiality , Likeness , Istoria.
Turnhout: Brepols, 2007.

Tura

CAMPBELL, STEPHEN J. Cosme Tura of Ferrara: Style , Politics , and the
Renaissance City, 1450-1495. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997.

MANCA, JOSEPH. Cosme Tura. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.

NATAL E, MAURO, ed. Cosme Tura e Francesco del Cossa: VArte a Ferrara
nell’eta di Borso d’Este. Ferrara: Ferrara Arte, 2007.

Uccello

POPE-HENNESSY, JOHN. The Complete Works of Paolo Uccello. 2d ed.
London: Phaidon, 1959.

SCHEFER, JEAN LOUIS. The Deluge, The Plague: Paolo Uccello. Ann
Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995.

Vasari

BAROLSKY, PAUL. Giotto’s Father and the Family of Vasari’s Lives.
University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991.

. Why Mona Lisa Smiles and Other Tales by Vasari. University Park,

Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991.

BJURSTROM, PER. Italian Drawings from the Collection of Giorgio
Vasari. Stockholm: Nationalmuseum, 2001.

BOASE, T. S. R. Giorgio Vasari: The Man and the Book. Princeton: Prince-
ton University Press, 1979.

CABLE, CAROLE. Giorgio Vasari, Architect: A Selected Bibliography of
Books and Articles. Monticello, 111.: Vance Bibliographers, 1985.

RUBIN, PATRICIA LEE. Giorgio Vasari: Art and History. New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1995.

Veronese

COCKE, RICHARD. Paolo Veronese: Piety and Display in an Age of
Religious Reform. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001.

PRIEVER, ANDREAS. Veronese. Cologne: Konemann, 2000.

REARICK, WILLIAM R. The Art of Paolo Veronese. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1988.

ROSAND, DAVID. Painting in Sixteenth-Century Venice: Titian, Veronese,
Tintoretto. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.

SALOMON, XAVIER F. Veronese’s Allegories: Virtue, Love, and
Exploration in Renaissance Venice. New York: Frick Collection, 2006.

Verrocchio

BUTTERFIELD, ANDREW. The Sculptures of Andrea del Verrochio. New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1997.

CO VI, DARIO A. Andrea del Verrocchio: Life and Work. Florence: Casa
Editrice, 2005.

RADKE, GARY M.,etal, eds. Verrocchio’s David Restored: A Renaissance
Bronze from the National Museum of the Bargello, Florence. Atlanta:
High Museum of Art, 2003.

Vignola

ADORNI, BRUNO. Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola. Milan: Skira, 2008.

WALCHER CASOTTI, MARIA. II Vignola. 2 vols. Trieste: Universita,
Instituto di storia dell’arte antica e moderna, 1960.

Vittoria

MARTIN, THOMAS. Alessandro Vittoria and the Portrait Bust in Renais-
sance Venice. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998.

LOCATING WORKS OF
RENAISSANCE ART

Architecture and works of sculpture still in situ are listed in the index under
the name of the city. The following list includes works in major museums in
major cities in Europe and the United States. While manuscripts and draw-
ings have been included, they can only be exposed to light for limited
amounts of time and are, therefore, infrequently on view.

Berlin, Gemaldegalerie: 8.19, 8.20, 9.15, 11.7, 15.67
Boston, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum: 12.28, 19.24
Boston, Museum of Fine Arts: 19.37
Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum: 11.9, 11.11
Dresden, Gemaldegalerie: 15.37, 17.53, 18.42, 19.6
Florence, Accademia: 5.10, 16.1, 16.41, 16.51, 18.16
Florence, Bargello: 7.2- 7.3, 7.11, 7.13-7.14, 10.20, 10.22, 10.28, 12.15,
13.4, 13.14-13.15, 14.28, 16.36, 20.20, 20.23
Florence, Casa Buonarotti: 16.33-16.34, 16.43, 17.24, 18.3
Florence, Museo dell’Opera del Duomo: 1.11, 7.17, 10.1, 10.13-10.17,
10.19, 12.6, 20.16

Florence, Museo di San Marco: 9.2, 9.4-9.5
Florence, Pitti Gallery: 9.11, 16.49-16.50, 17.54, 18.19-18.20
Florence, Uffizi: 2.10, 3.18, 4.1, 4.17,4.27, 5.12-5.13, 8.2-8.4, 11.2, 11.5,
11.8, 11.31-11.32, 13.2-13.3, 13.12, 13.18, 13.21, 13.23-13.24,
13.26-13.27, 13.29, 13.32, 14.20, 16.12, 16.16-16.17, 16.39, 17.17,
17.54, 18.2, 18.18, 18.26, 18.29, 18.50, 19.19, 19.39, 20.31-20.32,
20.34, 20.49

London, British Museum: 1.20, 15.30, 16.46, 17.21, 19.3, 20.15
London, Courtauld Gallery: 13.17

London, National Gallery: 8.17, 11.6, 11.18, 12.25, 13.7-13.8, 13.22,
13.30, 13.42, 15.5, 15.22, 15.33-15.34, 15.36, 15.39, 15.62, 16.27,

17.62, 18.22, 18.49, 19.9, 19.14, 19.29, 19.31, 19.35, 19.36, 20.33
London, Victoria and Albert Museum: 15.51, 17.57, 17.59
Madrid, Prado: 19.13, 19.22

Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana: 17.48, 20.57

Milan, Brera Museum: 11.30, 15.23, 15.40, 15.50, 15.64, 16.44

Milan, Castello Sforzesco: 5.20, 20.17

Milan, Museo Poldi Pezzoli: 13.9

Munich, Alte Pinakothek: 19.26

Naples, Capodimonte: 4.14, 8.18, 19.21

New York, Frick Collection: 4.9, 15.43

New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art: 1.14, 7.20, 12.3-12.5, 13.43,
15.38, 15.48

New York, Pierpont Morgan Library: 15.52

Paris, Louvre: 4.19, 12.12, 13.40, 15.6-15.7, 15.11-15.13, 15.21, 15.31,

15.63, 16.13, 16.18, 16.28-30, 16.40, 17.42-17.43, 17.55, 19.7,
19.17-19.18, 19.51

Philadelphia, Museum of Art: 15.49

Rome, Borghese Gallery: 19.12, 19.32-19.33

Siena, Museo dell’Opera del Duomo: 2.28, 4.2-4. 7, 4.10—4.11, 4.26

Siena, Museum at Hospital of Santa Maria della Scala: 7.21, 14.8

Siena, Pinacoteca: 4.18, 14.4, 14.9, 18.32-18.33

Vatican, Museums: 14.24, 14.33, 17.58, 17.63, 20.8, 20.11, 20.19

Venice, Accademia: 15.9, 15.32, 15.45-15.47, 16.5, 16.22, 16.31, 19.5,

19.27, 19.40-19.41, 19.52-19.53

Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum: 16.47, 18.46-18.48, 18.51, 19.8,

19.28, 19.56, 20.21, 20.28, 20.38

Washington, D.C., Corcoran Gallery of Art: 17.75, 20.39
Washington, D.C., National Gallery: 4.4, 5.7, 5.14, 6.2-6.3, 10.2-10.3,
11.10, 11.16, 13.20, 14.14-14.15, 14.19, 16.14-16.15, 16.45, 16.48,
18.30

LOCATING WORKS OF RENAISSANCE ART * 7 I 5

INDEX

Italic page references denote illustrations.
Names of artists and architects whose works
are illustrated are indicated with CAPITALS.
Boldfaced page references signify major dis-
cussions of a given topic, artist, or artwork.

a secco 32

Abundance or Autumn (Botticelli) 340, 341
Adam (Antonio Rizzo) 428, 428
Adoration of the Child (Guido Mazzoni)
440,440

Adoration of the Infant Jesus

(Fra Filippo Lippi) 236-7, 237
(Perino del Vaga) 565-6, 566
Adoration of the Magi

(Jacopo Bassano) 639, 639
(Sandro Botticelli) (Uffizi) 332, 333
(Sandro Botticelli) (Washington) 335,
335-6

(Bramantino) 617 , 617-18
(Domenico Veneziano) 267, 268
(Gentile da Fabriano) (Strozzi altarpiece)
203-6, 204, 224

(Leonardo da Vinci) 335-6, 453, 453-4
(Masaccio) from the Pisa polyptych 217,
217-18

(Nicola Pisano) 58, 58
Adoration of the Shepherds { Holy Night)
(Correggio) 574, 574

Adoration of the Shepherds (Portinari altar-
piece) (Hugo van der Goes) 347, 347,
352

Adrian VI, Pope 545
Agony in the Garden

(Giovanni Bellini) 415-16, 416
(Andrea Mantegna) 402-3, 403
Agostino di Duccio 477
ALBERTI, LEONBATTISTA 27, 166, 196,
239-46, 265, 285, 295, 319, 344,

448, 491, 643, 685
Della pictura/Della pittura 159, 228,
239, 239, 248, 249, 250, 251
De re aedificatoria libri X 239, 242,

247, 251
De statua 239
influence of 246-5 1
Malatesta Temple, San Francesco,

Rimini 240, 241, 241-2
Palazzo Rucellai, Florence (attrib., with
Bernardo Rossellino) 18, 242-4,
243

and perspective 163, 198, 228, 248, 250
Sant’ Andrea, Mantua 245, 245-6, 246
Santa Maria Novella, Florence (facade)
244, 244-5
Self-Portrait 240 , 241
on women 313, 338

Alexander VI, Pope 344, 374, 444, 473,

487, 490, 534
Alfonso of Aragon 384-5
The Allegory o f Fortune, marble floor, Siena
Cathedral (Pintoricchio) 375, 375-6
Allegory of Good Government (Ambrogio
Lorenzetti) see Good and Bad
Government

Allegory with Venus and Cupid (Agnolo
Bronzino) 669-71, 670
ALLEGRI, ANTONIO
see Correggio

ALLORI, ALESSANDRO 665, 680
Pearl Fishers , Studiolo, Palazzo dei
Priori, Florence 680, 680
altarpieces 25-6

ALTICHIERO, Crucifixion 151-2, 152
AMMANATI, BARTOLOMMEO 665-6,
684

Fountain of Neptune, Piazza della
Signoria, Florence 665, 665
Palazzo Pitti, Florence, courtyard 666 ,
666

Ponte Santa Trinita, Florence 666 , 667
ANDREA DA FIRENZE (Andrea Bonaiuti)
69, 143-5

Chapter House frescoes, Santa Maria
Novella, Florence 136, 143,

143-4

Coronation of the Virgin Mary with
Donor (stained-glass window)

144, 144-5

ANDREA DEL CASTAGNO
see Castagno, Andrea del
ANDREA DEL SARTO 555-8, 559
Assumption of the Virgin 556-8, 557
Lamentation 556, 556
Madonna of the Harpies 555, 555-6
Birth of the Virgin, Santissima

Annunziata, Florence 555, 555
ANDREA DI CIONE
see Orcagna

ANDREA DI MICHELE CIONI
see Verrocchio, Andrea del
ANDREA DI PIETRO
see Palladio, Andrea
ANDREA PISANO
see Pisano, Andrea

ANGELICO, FRA (Giovanni da Fiesole;
Guido di Pietro) 148, 179, 224-30,
249, 295, 298, 312, 386
Annunciation and Scenes from the Life
of the Virgin (altarpiece) 222,
224-6

Visitation 226, 226

Descent from the Cross 224, 224; frame
and pinnacles by Lorenzo Monaco
224, 225

San Marco altarpiece, Florence
Madonna and Saints 226-8, 227
The Miracle of the Deacon Justinian
228, 228

San Marco monastery, frescoes 228-31
Annunciation (hallway) 229-30, 230
Annunciation (monk’s cell) 230, 231
Angelo Doni (Raphael) 484, 484
Anguissola, Amilcare 622
ANGUISSOLA, SOFONISBA 572, 621^1
Portrait of the Artist’s Three Sisters with
their Governess 623, 623—4
Self-Portrait 622, 622-3
Annunciation

(Fra Angelico) (hallway, San Marco)
229-30, 230

(Fra Angelico) (monk’s cell, San Marco)
230, 231

(Alesso Baldovinetti) 304, 304, 315, 315
(Sandro Botticelli) 342, 343
(Domenico Veneziano) 270, 270
(Donatello) 255, 255-6
(Lorenzo Ghiberti) 183-5, 185
(Giotto di Bondone) 80, 80-1
(Leonardo da Vinci) 450-1, 451, 454
(Fra Filippo Lippi) 232-3, 233

(Lorenzo Lotto) 590, 613-14
(Piero della Francesca) 287, 288
Annunciation and Scenes from the Life of
the Virgin (altarpiece) (Fra Angelico)
222, 224-6

Annunciation to the Shepherds (Taddeo
Gaddi) 98, 98

Annunciation with Two Saints (Simone
Martini) 114, 115

Annunciation , Nativity, and Annunciation to
the Shepherds (Nicola Pisano) 58, 58
Ansuino da Forli 376

antiquity, influence of 18-20, 159; see also
Rome, ancient

ANTONELLO DA MESSINA 32, 412-15
Portrait of a Man 414, 414
St. Jerome in His Study 412 ,412
St. Sebastian 414-5, 415
Virgin Annunciate 414, 414
Antoninus of Florence, St. 223^1, 225, 226,
228, 236, 237, 250, 251, 287, 295,
298, 455
Apelles 73, 344

Apollo and Daphne (Antonio del Pollaiuolo)
324, 324

Apollo Belvedere (Roman sculpture,
Leochares?) 19, 19-20
Apotheosis of Venice (Pax Veneta) (Paolo
Veronese) 637, 637, 638
The Appearance of St. Michael on the Castel
Sant’ Angelo (Domenico Beccafumi)
569, 569-70

Appiano, Semiramide d’ 338
April , from the Sala dei Mesi, Palazzo
Schifanoia, Ferrara (Francesco del
Cossa) 438, 439
APULIA, NICOLA D’
see Pisano, Nicola
architects 25

Architectural Perspective and Background
Figures, for the Adoration of the Magi
(Leonardo da Vinci) 453, 454
architecture

Baroque 653, 687
Duocento 64-71

Gothic 26, 35, 57-8, 64-71, 150-1,
154-6, 164

High Renaissance 309, 447-8, 489-96,
544, 639^47
practice of 27, 34-6
Quattrocento, early, Venice 393
Quattrocento, late, Venice 428-33
Renaissance 159-79

see also Rome, ancient: art and architec-
ture

ARCIMBOLDO, GIUSEPPE 681-2
Fire 681, 682

Arena Chapel, Padua 64, 72, 74-86, 75, 77,
78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86
iconography 76

Aretino, Pietro 577, 627, 642, 671
Arezzo

San Francesco 282, 283-7, 284, 285,
286, 287, 288
iconography 283

Pieve di Santa Maria 119, 119-21
Aristotle 519, 572

illustrated works 426-7, 427
armorers 24

ARNOLFO DI CAMBIO 59, 68-70, 164
Florence Cathedral 68, 68-9, 69
Palazzo dei Priori (Palazzo Vecchio),

716 • INDEX

Florence 70, 70-1
Santa Croce, Florence 64, 67, 67-8
arriccio 30

Arrival of Cardinal Francesco Gonzaga
(Andrea Mantegna) 404 , 404-5
Arrival of the Ambassadors of Britain at the
Court of Brittany (Vittore Carpaccio)
422, 423

Arsenale Gateway, Venice (Antonio
Gambello, attrib.) 430, 430
art history 37-8

Art of Sculpture (Andrea Pisano) 24

design for (Giotto di Bondone, attrib.)
24

arte/arti

see guilds

Arte di Calimala 24, 181, 183

Arte del Cambio 24

Arte dei Giudici e Notai 24

Arte della Lana 24

Arte dei Linaioli e Rigattieri 189

Arte dei Medici e Speziali 24, 122, 146, 207

Arte di Pietra e Legname 24, 35, 139, 188

Arte della Seta 24

Arte dei Vaiai e Pellicciai 24

artists

bottegas 25-7
status of 24-5

women 25, 570-2, 621-2; see also

Anguissola, Sofonisba; Fontana,
Lavinia; Galizia, Fede; Properzia
de’ Rossi

Arts, Liberal 24-5, 249, 325, 446, 515, 621
Arts, Mechanical 24-5, 621
Assisi 21

San Francesco Lower Church 120, 121,
121-2

St. Martin Chapel 112, 113, 114
San Francesco Upper Church 51-2, 52,
54, 54, 55, 93-5, 94
Assumption of the Virgin

(Andrea del Sarto) 556-8, 557
(Correggio) 575, 575-6, 576
(Nanni di Banco) 195, 195-6
(Rosso Fiorentino) 563, 563
(Titian) 596-7, 599, 600, 601
ATHENODORUS

see Hagesandros, Athenodorus, and
Polydorus
Athens, Duke of 137
Atys-Amorino (Donatello) 255, 255
Augustine, St., 155, 169
Augustus, Emperor 591
Aurelio, Niccolo 601
AVANZI, JACOPO 151

Chapel of St. Felix, Sant’ Antonio,

Padua, lunettes

Liberation of the Companions of St.
James 151, 151
Averroes 427
Avignon papacy 53, 74
azurite 29

Bacchanal of the Andrians (Titian) 602,
602-3

Bacchanal with a Wine Vat (Andrea
Mantegna) 407, 407-8
Bacchus (Michelangelo Buonarroti) 473,

473

Bacchus and Ariadne (Titian) 602-3, 603
Baccio d’ Agnolo 166

Baldassare Castiglione (Raphael) 525, 525
BALDINI, BACCIO

The Planet Mercury and the Professions

Practiced under His Sign 25, 26
BALD O VINETTI, ALESSO 313-15

Annunciation , Chapel of the Cardinal of
Portugal, San Miniato, Florence
304, 304, 315, 315
Nativity , Santissima Annunziata,
Florence 314, 314, 555
Portrait of a Young Woman 313 ,

313-14

BANCO, MASO DI
see Maso di Banco
BANCO, NANNI DI
see Nanni di Banco
Bandini, Bandino 367
Baptism of Christ

(Piero della Francesca) 279, 280
(Andrea del Verrocchio with Leonardo
da Vinci) 327, 327-8, 450, 450,
467

Baptism of Hermogenes (Andrea Mantegna)
397, 398

Baptism of the Multitude (Andrea Pisano)

101 , 101

Baptistery, Florence 64, 65, 162, 162
competition panels 181-3, 182
Gates of Paradise 238 , 249-51, 250,

251

mosaics 47, 48

North Doors 183-6, 184, 185
South Doors 100, 101
Baptistery, Pisa, pulpit 40, 57-9, 58, 59
Baptistery, Siena, font 197-8, 198
Barbaro, Daniele 633, 645
Barbaro, Marcantonio 645
Bardi bank 137

Bardi Chapel, Santa Croce, Florence 88,
88-91, 89, 90, 91
Barna da Siena 32
BAROCCI, FEDERICO 687-9
Madonna del Popolo 688, 689
Baroncelli Chapel, Santa Croce, Florence 97,
97-8, 98

Baroque architecture 653, 687
BAROZZI, JACOPO

see Vignola, Giacomo da
BARTOLO, DOMENICO DI
see Domenico di Bartolo
BARTOLOMEO SUARDI
see Bramantino

BARTOLOMMEO, FRA (Baccio della
Porta) 420, 484-5, 463, 593
Vision of St. Bernard 485, 485
BARTOLOMMEO, MICHELOZZO DI
see Michelozzo di Bartolommeo
Bartolommeo Panciatichi (Agnolo Bronzino)
669, 669

BASSANO, JACOPO (Jacopo dal Ponte)

634, 639

Adoration of the Magi 639, 639
Baths at Pozzuoli (Girolamo Macchietti)

681, 681

Battista Sforza (Francesco Laurana) 291,

379, 379

Battista Sforza (Piero della Francesca)

290-2, 292

Battle of Anghiari (Leonardo da Vinci)

467-8, 554; copy by Peter Paul
Rubens 467, 467

Battle of Cascina (Michelangelo Buonarroti)
467, 478-80, 496; Study for 479;
copy by Aristotile da Sangallo 479
Battle of Constantine and Maxentius (Piero
della Francesca) 286, 286
Battle of Heraclius and Chosroes (Piero
della Francesca) 286-7, 287
Battle of Lapiths and Centaurs

(Michelangelo Buonarroti) 471, 471-2
Battle of San Romano (Paolo Uccello)

265-6, 266, 267, 278, 316
Battle of the Nudes (Antonio del Pollaiuolo)
321,3 21-2

Beau Dieu (Christ) (sculpture, Notre Dame,
Amiens) 60, 60

BECCAFUMI, DOMENICO 567-70
The Appearance of St. Michael on the
Castel Sant* Angelo 569, 569-~0
Fall of the Rebel Angels (first version I
568, 568-9

Fall of the Rebel Angels (second version!
568, 568-9

The Miracle of St. Michael on Mt.

Gargano 569-70, 570
Stigmatization of St. Catherine 567 ,
567-8

BELLINI, GENTILE 395, 396, 411-15
Portrait of Sultan Mehmet II the
Conqueror 411-12, 412
Procession of the Relic of the True Cross
411,411

BELLINI, GIOVANNI 395, 415-20, 591,
592, 593, 597

Agony in the Garden 415-16, 416
Enthroned Madonna and Child with
Saints (San Giobbe altarpiecel
417-18, 418

Enthroned Madonna and Child uith Sts.
Peter y Nicholas , Benedict , and
Mark (Frari altarpiece), Sacristy,
Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari,
Venice 418, 419

Enthroned Madonna with Saints (San
Zaccaria altarpiece) 388, 420, 421
Madonna and Child 415, 416
Pieta 416-17, 417
St. Francis in Ecstasy 418, 420, 420
BELLINI, JACOPO 395-7

Flagellation , drawing 396, 397
Madonna of Humility with Donor 394,
394-5

Nativity , drawing 396, 396-7
Belvedere, Vatican, Rome (Donato
Bramante) 19, 488, 494-5, 495
Belvedere Torso 19, 488; drawing of

(Maarten van Heemskerck) 488, 489
Bembo, Pietro 409

Benci, Ginevra de’, portrait bv Leonardo da
Vinci 451-2, 452
BENEDETTO DA MAIANO 306

Palazzo Strozzi, Florence 307-9, 308,

309

Bust of Pietro Mellini 306, 306
Benedict, Pope XIV 1 8
Bergamo 617, 621
Berlinghieri, Berlinghiero 44
BERLINGHIERI, BONAVENTURA 44-5
St. Francis with Scenes from his Life ,

San Francesco, Pescia 44—5, 45
Bernard, St. 42
BERNARDINO DI BETTO
see Pintoricchio
Bernardino of Siena, St. 125
BERTOLDO DI GIOVANNI 470

Commemorative Medal of the Pazzi
Conspiracy with the Portraits of
Lorenzo il Magnifico and
Giuliano de’ Medici 297 , 298
Bessarion, Cardinal 641
The Betrayal (Simone Martini, workshop of)
117, 118, 118

BETTO, BERNARDINO DI
see Pintoricchio
Biagio da Cesena 652

INDEX * 717

BIAGIO D’ANTONIO

cassone (with Jacopo del Sellaio and

Zanobi di Domenico) 33 1, 331-2
BIGORDI, DOMENICO

see Ghirlandaio, Domenico
BIRAGO, GIOVANNI PIETRO DA
Last Supper , after Leonardo da Vinci
462, 462

Bird’s-eye View of the Chiana Valley,

Showing Arezzo, Cortona, Perugia,
and Siena (Leonardo da Vinci) 446,
446

Birth of the Virgin

(Andrea del Sarto) 555, 555
(Pietro Cavallini) 56, 56-7
(Domenico del Ghirlandaio) 355, 355
(Pietro Lorenzetri) 122. 122
(Orcagna) 141, 141

Birth of Venus iSandro Botticelli) 339-40,
340

birth salver (Desco da Parto ) of Lorenzo de’
Medici, with the Triumph of Fame
(Scheggia) 297, 297
black death see bubonic plague
The Blessed Agostino Novello and Four of
his Miracles (Simone Martini) 116,
116-17

“ Blockhead ” Captive (Michelangelo
Buonarroti) 554, 554
blue pigments 29
Boboli Gardens 248, 248
Boccaccio, Giovanni 73, 274, 317
bole 28-9
Bologna 497

San Petronio, main portal 200-1, 201
BON, GIOVANNI AND BARTOLOMEO,
MATTEO RAVERTI, ZUAN DA
FRANZA, and others: Ca d’Oro,
Venice 393, 393
BONAIUTI, ANDREA
see Andrea da Firenze
Bonaventura, St. 98

Legenda Maior 91, 94
BONINO DA CAMPIONE

Equestrian Monument to Bernabo
Visconti 152, 152-3
Funerary Monument of Cansignorio
della Scala 156, 156

BONINO DA CAMPIONE, WORKSHOP
OF, Sarcophagus of Bernabb Visconti
152

BONVICINI, ALESSANDRO
see Moretto

Book of the Courtier (Baldassare
Castiglione) 464, 525
books see publishing
Borgherini, Pierfrancesco 558
Borghini, Vincenzo 677
Borgia, Cesare 345, 444, 446, 463, 467, 534
Borgia, Rodrigo ( see Alexander VI
bottegas 25-7

BOTTICELLI, SANDRO (Alessandro) 297,
319, 332—45, 347, 371,443
Abundance or Autumn 340, 341
Adoration of the Magi (Uffizi) 332, 333
Adoration of the Magi (Washington)
335, 335-6

Annunciation 342, 343
Birth of Venus 339—40, 340
Calumny of Apelles 344, 344
Madonna of the Magnificat 336, 336-7
Mystic Nativity 345, 345
Portrait of a Man with a Medal of
Cosimo de 3 Medici 342, 342
Primavera 338-9, 339
Sistine Chapel frescoes 332-5

Punishment of Korah, Dathan, and
Abiram 334, 334—5
Venus and Mars 337, 337-8
Botticelli, Simone 342
BOULOGNE, JEAN
see Giovanni Bologna
BRAMANTE, DONATO (Donato di
Pascuccio) 366, 379, 488, 489-96,
519, 526, 676,684
Belvedere, Vatican, Rome 488, 494-5,
495

Palazzo Caprini, Rome 496, 496, 584
Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan 490,
490

Santa Maria presso San Satiro, Milan
489 , 489-90, 490

St. Peter’s, Vatican, Rome 491-3, 492,
493, 654-6

Tempietto, San Pietro in Montorio,
Rome 490, 490-1

BRAMANTINO (Bartolomeo Suardi) 617
Adoration of the Magi 617, 617-18
Brancacci family 208
Brescia 592, 617, 619
Bridget, St. 148, 205, 236
bronze casting 33^1, 34
BRONZINO, AGNOLO (Agnolo Tori) 559,
669-73, 680

Allegory with Venus and Cupid 669-71,
670

Bartolommeo Panciatichi 669, 669
Chapel of Eleonora da Toledo 672, 672
Crossing of the Red Sea 672-3, 673
Eleonora da Toledo and Her Son,
Giovanni 671, 671-2
Pietd 669, 669

BRUNELLESCHI, FILIPPO 174, 175, 181,
208, 220, 233, 247
Florence Cathedral 69
Dome 159, 164, 164-8, 165, 166,

167, 168, 241-2

Ospedale degli Innocenti 64, 168-9, 169
Pazzi Chapel, Santa Croce, Florence
158, 174, 174
and perspective 161-3
Sacrifice of Isaac 1 8 1-3, 1 82
San Lorenzo, Florence
Old Sacristy 160, 170, 170-1, 171
Santa Maria degli Angeli, Florence 173,
173—4

Santo Spirito, Florence 170-3, 172, 173
Bruni, Lionardo 249, 338

History of the Florentine People 36
tomb, Santa Croce, Florence (Bernardo
Rossellino) 260, 261, 302
bubonic plague 137, 139, 141, 236, 278,
295, 556, 612

BUONTALENTI, BERNARDO
Ewer 674— 5, 675
plan for Livorno 434
Busketus 57

Bust of Pietro Mellini (Benedetto da
Maiano) 306, 306
busts see portraiture
Buti, Lucrezia 232, 237
Byzantine art and influences 29, 41-7, 49,
53, 73, 81, 104, 149, 428

Ca d’Oro, Venice 393, 393
Calimala, Arte di 24, 181, 183
Calumny of Apelles (Sandro Botticelli) 344,
344

Camaldolite Order 146, 148, 173, 237
CAMBIO, ARNOLFO DI

see Arnolfo di Cambio
Cambio, Arte del 24
Cambrai, League of 389, 592
Campanile, Florence Cathedral 25, 68 , 92,
92-3, 93, 196
Campi, Bernardino 622
Campidoglio, Rome (Michelangelo
Buonarroti) 656, 657
Palazzo dei Conservatori 656-7, 658
CAMPIONE, BONINO DA
see Bonino da Campione
Camposanto, Pisa 134
Cancelleria, Rome, frescoes 676, 676
Cantoria

(Donatello) 254, 254-5
(Luca della Robbia) 251, 252
capomaestro 35

Cappella Maggiore, Santa Maria Novella,
Florence 353-5, 354, 470
Capponi Chapel, Santa Felicita, Florence
560-1, 561, 562
Capponi, Niccolo 553-4
Caprarola, Palazzo Farnese 684-5, 684, 685
Captives (Michelangelo Buonarroti) 497,
513, 515, 552-4
" Blockhead " Captive 554, 554
“Dying Slave ” 514, 514
Rebellious Slave 514, 514
Capture of the Sabine Woman (Giovanni
Bologna) 668 , 668
CARADOSSO

Medal of Julius II 487
medal with Donato Bramante’s design of
exterior of St. Peter’s, Vatican,
Rome 492, 492
Carafa, Giovanni 534
CARAVAGGIO (Michelangelo Merisi da
Caravaggio) 687, 689-91
Madonna di Loreto, Sant’ Agostino,
Rome 689-91, 690

Care of the Sick (Domenico di Bartolo) 362,
363

Carmelite Order 210, 215

Caro, Annibale 622

CARPACCIO, VITTORE 421-5, 591

Arrival of the Ambassadors of Britain at
the Court of Brittany 422, 423
Departure of the Prince from Britain,

His Arrival in Brittany, and
Departure of the Betrothed
Couple for Rome 422, 422
Dream of St. Ursula 422, 423, 424
Meditation on the Passion 424, 424-5
Carrara marble 33, 33
cartoons 27, 32, 519-20
cassoni 315-17, 331, 331-2

Biagio d’Antonio, Jacopo del Sellaio,
and Zanobi di Domenico 331,
331-2

CASTAGNO, ANDREA DEL 271-8, 313,
314, 320, 389
Cumaean Sibyl 275, 275
Famous Men and Women Cycle 2 74,
274-5, 275

Last Supper and Resurrection,

Crucifixion, and Entombment
(Sant’Apollonia) 262, 271-3, 272
Niccolo da Tolentino 278, 278
Pippo Spano 274-5, 275
Resurrection, Crucifixion, Entombment
(sinopia) 31

Triumph o f David 275-6, 276
Vision of St. Jerome, fresco, Santissima
Annunziata, Florence 276-8, 277
Castelfranco Cathedral 593, 593
Castello Aragonese, Naples, Triumphal Arch

718 • INDEX

of King Alfonso of Aragon 384,
384-5

Castiglione, Baldassare

portrait by Raphael 525, 525
Book of the Courtier 464, 525
catasto 160

Cathedral, Florence 18, 21, 22, 68, 68-9,
69, 25 1 — 4, 253, 264, 264, 476-7
Campanile 25, 68, 92, 92-3, 93, 196
Dome 18, 21, 159, 164, 164-8, 165 ,
166, 167, 168, 241-2
lantern 165, 165-6
North Sacristy 306-7, 307
Porta della Mandorla 195, 195-6
Cathedral, Orvieto 128-33, 129, 130, 131,
132, 133, 521

San Brizio Chapel, frescoes 386, 387
iconography 386
Cathedral, Parma 575, 575, 576
Cathedral, Prato 235, 235-6, 236
Cathedral, Siena 60, 61, 374, 375, 367
facade 60, 61, 62-3
Piccolomini Library 374, 374-5, 375
pulpit 59-60, 60
Cavalcanti, Guido 73
CAVALLINI, PIETRO (Pietro de’ Cerroni)
54-7

Birth of the Virgin , mosaic, Santa Maria
in Trastevere, Rome 56, 56-7
Last Judgment, fresco, Santa Cecilia in
Trastevere, Rome 56-7, 56-7
Christ Preaching in Jerusalem , with a
Donor (watercolor copy) 55, 55-6
CAVALORI, MIRABELLO 680-1

Wool Factory, Studiolo, Palazzo dei
Priori, Florence 680, 680-1
Cefalu Cathedral, Sicily 42
CELLINI, BENVENUTO 25, 662-4
autobiography 34, 662, 664
Perseus and Medusa, Loggia dei Lanzi,
Florence 663, 663^1
Portrait of Grand Duke Cosimo de’
Medici 664, 664

Saltcellar of King Francis I of France
662, 662-3
CENNI DI PEPI
see Cimabue

Cennini, Cennino 27, 28-30, 32, 73, 78-9,
82

II libro delVarte 27, 145, 248
ceramics 674-5
Ceresara, Paride da 409
Cezanne, Paul 280

Chapel of Eleonora da Toledo, Palazzo dei
Priori, Florence 672, 672
Crossing of the Red Sea 672-3, 673
Chapel of St. Anthony, Sant’ Antonio, Padua
616, 616

Chapel of St. Felix, Sant’Antonio, Padua
151, 151-2, 152

Chapel of the Cardinal of Portugal, San
Miniato, Florence 303-6, 304, 305,
315,315, 321,324, 333
Chapter House (Spanish Chapel), Santa
Maria Novella, Florence 136,143,
143—4

chapter houses 26
Charles I, King of England 527
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor 545, 546,
586, 592, 597, 617
Charles VIII, King of France 342
chasing (metal technique) 34
Chastity of Joseph (Properzia de’ Rossi)
570-1, 571
Chigi, Agostino 534
Chiostro Verde, Santa Maria Novella,

Florence 264, 264-5

Christ (Beau Dieu) (sculpture, Notre Dame,
Amiens) 60, 60

Christ and St. Thomas (Andrea del
Verrocchio) 328, 328
Christ Giving the Keys to St. Peter

(Perugino) 334, 369, 369-72, 370
Christ in Glory (Melozzo da Forli) 377, 377
Christ Pantocrator, the Virgin Mary, Angels,
Saints , and Prophets (mosaic, Cefalu
Cathedral, Sicily) 42

Christ Preaching in Jerusalem, with a Donor
(watercolor copy) (Pietro Cavallini)

55, 55-6

Christus mortuus 74
Christus patiens 43, 50
CHRISTUS, PETRUS
see Petrus Christus
Christus triumphans 42
CIMABUE (Cenni di Pepi) 41, 47, 49-52,
54, 73, 74

Crucifix 50, 50-1, 51
Crucifixion , San Francesco Upper
Church, Assisi 51-2, 52
Enthroned Madonna and Child with
Angels and Prophets 49, 49-50
Cinquecento 41

see also High Renaissance art
Ciompi 24, 160
CIONE, ANDREA DI
see Orcagna
Cione, Jacopo 142
CIONE, NARDO DI 142-3

Madonna and Child with Sts. Peter and
John the Evangelist 142, 143
Strozzi Chapel, Santa Maria Novella,

Florence, Last Judgment, Paradise,
and Hell 138, 142-3
Cistercian Order 66
city-states, Italian 20^1, 41
Claudia Quinta (Neroccio de’ Landi) 368,
368

Claudian 338

Clement VII, Pope (Giulio de’ Medici) 462,
526, 531, 544, 545, 546, 550, 649
portrait by Raphael 526, 526
CODUSSI, MAURO 430
Palazzo Loredan (Palazzo

Vend ramin-Calergi ) , Venice 432,
432-3

San Zaccaria, Venice, facade (with
Antonio Gambello) 430-1, 431
Scuola Grande di San Marco, Venice,
facade (with Pietro and Tullio
Lombardo) 431, 431
COLA DA CAPRAROLA, Santa Maria
della Consolazione, Todi, Umbria
493-4, 494
Colantonio 412

Collegiata, San Gimignano 117, 117-18,

118

Colleoni, Bartolommeo, equestrian monu-
ment (Andrea del Verrocchio with
Alessandro Leopardi) 329-30, 330
Colonna, Cardinal Pompeo 545
Colosseum, Rome 18, 18
Columnella 338

Commemorative Medal of the Pazzi
Conspiracy with the Portraits of
Lorenzo il Magnifico and Giuliano de ’
Medici (Bertoldo di Giovanni) 297,

298

Concert Champetre ( Pastoral Concert)

(Titian or Giorgione) 595, 596
Condivi, Ascanio 473, 515
Confirmation of the Franciscan Rule by

Pope Honorius III (Domenico del
Ghirlandaio) 351-2, 352
Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception
455

Constantinople 41, 149, 296
contrapposto 20, 190
Conversion of St. Paul

(Michelangelo Buonarroti) 652-3, 653
(Raphael) 528, 529
COPPO DI MARCOVALDO 45
Crucifix 46, 46-7
Last Judgment, mosaic, Baptistery,
Florence 47, 48
Madonna and Child 47, 47
Corboli, Girolamo dei 278
Coronation of the Virgin

(Francesco di Giorgio) 365, 365-6
(Giovanni d’Alemagna with Antonio
Vivarini) 394, 394-5
(Lorenzo Monaco) 146, 147, 148
(Paolo Veneziano) 149, 149-50
(Jacopo Torriti) 53, 53 — 4
Coronation of the Virgin Mary with Donor
(stained-glass window) (Andrea da
Firenze) 144, 144-5

Coronation of the Virgin with Saints (Giotto
di Bondone) 97, 98

CORREGGIO (Antonio Allegri) 572-6, 68~
Adoration of the Shepherds (Holy
Night) 574, 574

Assumption of the Virgin, Parma
Cathedral 575, 575-6, 576
Camera di San Paolo, Parma, frescoes
572, 572-3

The Three Graces 572, 573
Jupiter and Ganymede 5 76, 576
Jupiter and Io 576, 577
Madonna and Child with Sts. Jerome
and Mary Magdalen 573, 573
Vision of St. John the Evangelist, San
Giovanni Evangelista, Parma 574,
574-5

COSIMO, PIERO DI
see Piero di Cosimo
Cosimo I as Patron of Pisa (Pierino da
Vinci) 660-1, 661
COSSA, FRANCESCO DEL

John the Baptist, from the Griffon i altar-
piece 437, 437

Sala dei Mesi, Palazzo Schifanoia,

Ferrara, frescoes 437-9, 438
April 438, 439
COSTA, LORENZO 408

Garden of the Peaceful Arts 410
Court of Pan (Luca Signorelli) 385, 385-6
The Creation (Lorenzo Ghiberti) 250, 250
Creation of Adam

(Michelangelo Buonarroti) 507, 507-9
(Andrea Pisano) 100, 100-1
(Jacopo della Quercia) 200, 201
Creation of Eve (Michelangelo Buonarroti)
504-5, 506

Creation of Sun, Moon, and Planets

(Michelangelo Buonarroti) 508, 509
Cremona 622

Cathedral 580-1, 581
cristallo 592

CRIVELLI, CARLO 425-6

Madonna della Candeletta 425-6, 426
Pietd 425, 425

Cronaca, II (Simone del Pollaiuolo), cornice,
Palazzo Strozzi, Florence 307
Cross No. 15 (School of Pisa) 42, 42-3
Cross No. 20 (School of Pisa) 43, 43-4
Crossing of the Red Sea (Agnolo Bronzino)
672-3, 673

INDEX ■ 719

Crowning with Thorns (Titian) 612, 612
Crucifix

(Cimabue) 50 , 50-1, 51
(Coppo di Marcovaldo) 46, 46-7
(Giotto di Bondone) 74, 74
(Michelangelo Buonarroti, attrib.) 472,
472

crucifixes 26
Crucifixion

(Altichiero) 151-2, 152
(Cimabue) 51-2, 52
(Duccio di Buoninsegna) 109, 109
(Vincenzo Foppa) 433, 433
(Andrea Mantegna) 402, 402
(Masaccio) 216-7, 217
(Michelangelo Buonarroti) 658, 658
(Pordenone) 580-1, 581
(Tintoretto) 628, 629
Crucifixion of St. Peter
(Masaccio) 218, 218
(Michelangelo Buonarroti) 652, 652-3
Crucifixion with the Virgin and Sts. John,
Jerome , and Mary Magdalene
(Perugino) 372, 373
Crusaders 41, 149
Cubists 280
Cumaean Sibyl

(Andrea del Castagno) 275, 275
(Michelangelo Buonarroti) 504, 505,

506

Cupid Carving His Bow (Parmigianino) 579,
579-80

Cupid Pointing Out Psyche to the Three

Graces (Raphael with Giulio Romano)
538, 539, 541
cusping 58

DADDI, BERNARDO

Madonna and Child Enthroned,

Orsanmichele, Florence 139, 140
Triptych, Loggia del Bigallo, Florence
96, 96-7

Damned Consigned to Hell (Luca Signorelli)
386, 387

Danae (Titian) 608, 608
Dance of the Nudes (Antonio del Pollaiuolo)
322, 322

Daniel (Nicola Pisano) 58, 59
Daniele da Volterra 650
Dante Alighieri 74, 274, 516, 520
Divine Comedy 73, 85, 382
Inferno 79, 651
DANTI, VINCENZO 661

Moses and the Brazen Serpent 661, 661
David

(Donatello) (bronze) 34, 160, 256,
256-7, 476

(Donatello) (marble) 188-9, 189
(Michelangelo Buonarroti) 442, 476-7,
478

(Andrea del Verrocchio) (bronze) 329,
329

David and Goliath (Titian) 607, 607
David Beheading Goliath (Michelangelo
Buonarroti) 511, 511
Dawn, tomb of Lorenzo de’ Medici
(Michelangelo Buonarroti) 547,

547-8, 550, 550, 665
Day, tomb of Giuliano de’ Medici

(Michelangelo Buonarroti) 471, 547,
547-8, 549

Death and Assumption of the Virgin
(Orcagna) 141, 141-2

Death of Procris (Piero di Cosimo) 356, 357

Dejeuner sur Vherbe (Edouard Manet)

530-1

DELLA PORTA, GIACOMO
II Gesu, Rome
facade 686-7, 687
facade and plan (with Giacomo da
Vignola) 685, 685
model for St. Peter’s dome (with

Michelangelo and Luigi Vanvitelli)
656, 656

Deluge

(Leonardo da Vinci) 469, 469
(Michelangelo Buonarroti) 502-3, 503
(Paolo Uccello) 264, 264-5
Departure of Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini for
Basel (Pintoricchio with Raphael) 359,
375

Departure of the Prince from Britain, His
Arrival in Brittany, and Departure of
the Betrothed Couple for Rome
(Vittore Carpaccio) 422, 422
Descent from the Cross

(Fra Angelico) 224, 224; frame and pin-
nacles (Lorenzo Monaco) 224,

225

(Pietro Lorenzetti) 120, 121, 121-2
(Jacopo Carucci da Pontormo) 560-1,
562

(Rosso Fiorentino) 564, 565
DESIDERIO DA SETTIGNANO 160,
302-3, 470

Meeting of Christ and John the Baptist
as Youths (Arconati-Visconti
Tondo) 302-3, 303
Tomb of Carlo Marsuppini, Santa

Croce, Florence 302-3, 302, 303
Diamante, Fra 235
Diogenes 519

Diogenes (Ugo da Carpi, after Parmigianino)
580, 580
diptych 26

Discovery of the Wood of the True Cross
(Piero della Francesca) 284 , 284-5
Disputa (Disputation over the Sacraments)
(Raphael) 515-17, 517, 519
Divine Comedy (Dante) 73, 85, 382; illus-
tration by Guglielmo Giraldi 382, 383
Doge’s Palace, Venice 630

Hall of the Great Council 637, 637
Dolce, Ludovico 596, 597, 599
Dome, Florence Cathedral 18, 21, 159, 164,
164-8, 165, 166, 167 , 168, 241-2
Domenico da Pescia, Fra 345
DOMENICO DI BARTOLO 362-3
Madonna of Humility 362, 362
Pellegrinaio frescoes, Hospital of Santa
Maria della Scala, Siena 362, 363
Care of the Sick 362, 363
DOMENICO GHIRLANDAIO
see Ghirlandaio, Domenico
DOMENICO VENEZIANO (Paolo di
Dono) 160, 224, 267-71, 280, 313,
389

Adoration of the Magi 267, 268
Madonna and Child with Sts. Francis,
John the Baptist, Zenobius, and
Lucy (St. Lucy altarpiece) 268,
269, 270

Annunciation 270, 270
Miracle of St. Zenobius 271, 271
St. John the Baptist in the Desert
270-1, 271
Dominic, St. 41

Dominican Order 64, 143, 223, 224, 226

Dominici, Giovanni 302

Dona Velata (Raphael) 524-5, 525

DONATELLO (Donato di Niccolo Bardi)
188-93, 196-9, 214, 254-9, 295,
298-302, 389, 470, 477
Annunciation , Santa Croce, Florence
255, 255-6

Atys-Amorino 255, 255
Baptismal font, Siena 197-8, 198, 359
Feast of Herod 197, 197-8
Cantoria 254, 254-5
niche for Christ and St. Thomas (Andrea
del Verrocchio) 328, 328
David (bronze) 34, 160, 256, 256-7,

476

David (marble) 188-9, 189
Equestrian Monument of Gattamelata
257, 257-8, 258

Judith and Holofernes 34, 2 99, 300,

663, 668

Penitent Magdalen 298-9, 299
Sant’ Antonio, Padua, high altar 258
Miracle of the Believing Donkey 258,
259

St. Anthony of Padua Healing the
Wrathful Son 258, 259
St. George 191, 191-2
St. George and the Dragon 192, 192-3
San Lorenzo, Florence, reliefs 170,
299-300

Harrowing of Hell , Resurrection ,
Ascension 300, 301
Lamentation 300, 301
St. Mark 189-91, 190
Zuccone (Habakkuk) 196, 196-7
DONATO DI NICCOLO BARDI
see Donatello
DONATO DI PASUCCIO
see Bramante, Donato
Doni, Angelo 474, 476

portrait by Raphael 484, 484
Doni, Maddalena Strozzi 474, 476
portrait by Raphael 484, 484
Doni Madonna (Michelangelo Buonarroti)
474-6, 475

DOSSI, DOSSO (Giovanni de Lutero)

Melissa 618, 618-19
drawing 27

cartoons 27, 32
sinopie 30, 32

Drawing after Donatello's Bronze David
(Michelangelo Buonarroti) 476, 476
Drawing of the Belvedere Torso (Maarten
van Heemskerck) 488, 489
Dream of Innocent III (Master of the St.
Francis Cycle) 94, 94

Dream of St. Martin (Simone Martini) 114,
114

Dream of St. Ursula (Vittore Carpaccio)

422, 423, 424

DUCCIO DI BUONINSEGNA 103-9
Madonna and Child 29, 29, 104
Madonna and Child (Rucellai Madonna )
103, 103-4

Maestd 104-9, 106, 107
Crucifixion 109, 209
Entry into Jerusalem 108, 108-9
Head of St. Catherine 104, 105
Madonna and Child 104, 105
Nativity and Prophets Isaiah and
Ezekiel 104, 105

Temptation of Christ on the Mountain
108, 108
Duecento 41, 42

architecture 64-71
painting 42-57, 149
sculpture 57-64

Duomo, Florence 18, 21, 22, 68, 68-9, 69,

720 * INDEX

251-4, 253 , 264, 264, 476-7
Campanile 25, 68, 92, 92-3, 93, 196
Dome 18, 21, 159, 164, 164-8, 165 ,
166, 167, 168, 241-2
lantern 165, 165-6
North Sacristy 306-7, 307
Porta della Mandorla 195, 195-6
Durer, Albrecht 410, 415, 530, 555, 559,
565

Dusk, tomb of Lorenzo de’ Medici
(Michelangelo Buonarroti) 547,
547-8, 549

“ Dying Slave ” (Michelangelo Buonarroti)
514, 514

Ecce Homo with Angel (Moretto) 620, 620
Edward III, King of England 137
Eleonora da Toledo and Her Son, Giovanni
(Agnolo Bronzino) 671, 671-2
engraving 36, 408
Enrico Scrovegni (Giotto) 691
Enthroned Christ with Madonna and Saints
(Orcagna) 138, 138-9, 139
Enthroned Madonna and Child (Masaccio)
216, 216

Enthroned Madonna and Child with Angels
(Roverella altarpiece) (Cosme Tura)
434-6, 435

Enthroned Madonna and Child with Angels
and Prophets (Cimabue) 49, 49-50
Enthroned Madonna and Child with Saints
(San Giobbe altarpiece) (Giovanni
Bellini) 417-18, 418

Enthroned Madonna and Child with Saints
(San Zeno altarpiece) (Andrea
Mantegna) 399-402, 400, 401
Enthroned Madonna and Child with Sts.
Peter, Nicholas, Benedict, and Mark
(Frari altarpiece) (Giovanni Bellini)
418, 419

Enthroned Madonna with Saints (Ognissanti
Madonna) (Giotto di Bondone) 86,

87, 88

Enthroned Madonna with Saints (San

Zaccaria altarpiece) (Giovanni Bellini)
388, 420, 421

Enthroned Madonna with Sts. Liberalis and
Francis (Giorgione) 593, 593
Entombment (Titian) 604-5, 605
Entry into Jerusalem (Duccio di
Buoninsegna) 108 , 108-9
Equestrian Monument of Bartolommeo

Colleoni (Andrea del Verrocchio with
Alessandro Leopardi) 329-30, 330
Equestrian Monument of Gattamelata
(Donatello) 257, 257-8, 258
Equestrian Monument to Marcus Aurelius
19, 19, 257, 656

Equestrian Monument to Bernabd Visconti
(Bonino da Campione) 152, 152-3
ERCOLE DE’ ROBERTI

Sala dei Mesi, Palazzo Schifanoia,
Ferrara, frescoes 437-9, 438
St. John the Baptist 439, 439
Eremitani Church, Padua, Ovetari Chapel
frescoes 397-9, 398, 399
Este, Alfonso d’ 602
Este, Borso d’ 437, 439
Este, Ercole d’ 436
Este, Isabella d’ 408-10, 463

portrait medal (Giancristoforo Romano)
408, 408

Este, Lionello d’ 395, 434
Este, Niccolo d’ 257

Este, Niccolo III 434

Este family 239, 287, 389, 410, 434, 436
Euclid 519

Eugenius IV, Pope 226, 375, 433
Eve (Antonio Rizzo) 428, 429
Ewer (Bernardo Buontalenti) 674-5, 675
Ewer Basin with Europa and the Bull
(Fontana family) 675, 675
Expulsion

(Masaccio) 213, 213-14, 214
(Jacopo della Quercia) 200, 201
Expulsion of Attila (Raphael) 521, 523
Expulsion of Heliodorus (Raphael) 522, 522
EYCK, JAN VAN 224, 293, 412, 414, 445
St. Jerome (with Petrus Christus) 347
Turin-Milan Hours 193

FABRIANO, GENTILE DA
see Gentile da Fabriano
fabrics 426, 427

Faith , Hope, and Charity (Raphael) 51 7,

520

Fall of Adam and Eve and Expulsion

(Michelangelo Buonarroti) 504, 505,
505

Fall of the Giants (Perino del Vaga) 566,
566-7

Fall of the Rebel Angels (Domenico
Beccafumi)

first version 568 , 568-9
second version 568, 568-9
Famous Men and Women Cycle (Andrea del
Castagno) 274, 274-5, 275
Fancelli, Luca, Palazzo Pitti, Florence
(attrib.) 248

Fantasy Portrait of Simonetta Vespucci as
Cleopatra (Piero di Cosimo) 3 56,356
Farnese, Alessandro
see Paul III, Pope
“Farnese cup” 296, 296
Feast in the House of Levi (Paolo Veronese)
634, 635
Feast of Herod

(Fra Filippo Lippi) 236, 236
(Donatello) Baptismal font, Siena 197,
197-8

Federico da Montefeltro (Piero della
Francesca) 290-2, 292
Ferrara 617

painting in 434-9, 592, 618
Palazzo Schifanoia, Sala dei Mesi fres-
coes 437-9, 438

Ficino, Marsilio 296, 337, 338, 339-40
Fiesole 21

FIESOLE, GIOVANNI DA
see Angelico, Fra

Fighting Men , study for relief sculpture in
School of Athens (Raphael) 520, 520
figura serpentina M 478
FILARETE, ANTONIO 242, 247, 433^1
(Antonio Averlino)

Ospedale Maggiore, Milan 433
plan of Sforzinda 434, 434
FIORE, JACOBELLO DEL
see Jacobello del Fiore
Fioretti (life of St. Francis) 91
Fire (Giuseppe Arcimboldo) 681, 682
Flagellation

(Jacopo Bellini) 396, 397
(Francesco di Giorgio) 366, 366
(Lorenzo Ghiberti) 185 , 185-6
(Sebastiano del Piombo) 540, 541
Flagellation of Christ (Piero della Francesca)
288-90, 289

Flamboyant Gothic style 429
Flight into Egypt (Gentile da Fabriano) 203,
206, 206

Florence 21, 21-2, 24, 25, 32, 37, 38, 41,
137, 149, 160, 223, 295-6, 342, 344,
359, 463, 543-4, 546
Baptistery 64, 65, 162, 162
competition panels 181-3, 182
Gates of Paradise 238 , 249-51, 250,
251

mosaics 47, 48

North Doors 183-6, 184, 185
South Doors 100 , 101
Boboli Gardens 248, 248
Duomo 18, 21, 22, 68, 68-9, 69, 251-1,
253, 264, 264, 476-7
Campanile 25, 68, 92, 92-3, 93, 196
Dome 18, 21, 159, 164, 164-8, 165,
166, 167, 168, 241-2
lantern 165, 165-6
North Sacristy 306-7, 307
Porta della Mandorla 195, 195-6
Fountain of Neptune, Piazza della
Signoria 665, 665

Loggia dei Lanzi 663, 663, 668, 668
Loggia della Signoria 71, 71
map 13

Ognissanti refectory 350-1, 351
Orsanmichele 24, 181, 186, 186-7, 187,
189, 191, 193

Tabernacle 139, 140, 141, 141-2
Ospedale degli Innocenti 64, 168-9, 169
Palazzo Medici-Riccardi (Medici Palace)
174-8, 175, 176, 177, 178, 236,
294,312,3 12-13
Palazzo Pitti 247-8, 248
courtyard 666, 666

Palazzo dei Priori (Palazzo Vecchio) 70,
70-1, 681

Chapel of Eleonora da Toledo 672,

672

Sala del Cinquecento 467
studiolo 677-81, 678, 679, 680, 681
Palazzo Rucellai 18, 242-4, 243
Palazzo Strozzi 307-9, 308, 309
Palazzo Vecchio see Palazzo dei Priori
above

Piazza della Signoria, Fountain of
Neptune 665, 665
Ponte Santa Trinita 666, 667
Santissima Annunziata 314, 314, 350,
463, 558, 558, 563, 563
Sant’Apollonia 262

Santa Croce 64, 67, 67-8, 95, 145, 255,
302, 302, 303

Bardi Chapel 88, 88-91, 89, 90, 91
Baroncelli Chapel 97, 97-8, 98
Pazzi Chapel 158, 174, 174
Peruzzi Chapel 88-9
Refectory 98-9, 99
San Felice 233

Santa Felicita, Capponi Chapel 560-1,
561, 562
San Lorenzo 160
Donatello reliefs 299-300, 301
facade 544, 544-5, 545
Laurentian Library 550-2
Entrance Hall 550-1, 551
Plan for the triangular rare-book
room 552, 552
Reading Room 551-2, 552
Medici Chapel 170, 545-50, 546,

547, 549, 550

Old Sacristy 160, 170, 170, 171
Santa Maria degli Angeli 146, 173,

173—4, 274

INDEX • 721

Santa Maria del Carmine, Brancacci
Chapel 208-15, 210, 211, 212,
213,214,215 , 232, 233, 347
iconography 209

Santa Maria Novella 64, 66, 66-7, 144,
218, 2 1 9, 220, 244, 244-5
Cappella Maggiore 353-5, 354 , 470
Chapter House (Spanish Chapel) 136,
143, 143—4

Chiostro Verde 264, 264— 5
Strozzi Chapel 138-9, 138, 139, 142,
348, 349-50

San Marco monastery 160, 229, 229 ,
298, 342
library 179, 179

San Miniato, Chapel of the Cardinal of
Portugal 303-6, 304, 305, 315,
315, 321, 324, 333

Santo Spiriro 170-3, 172, 173, 472, 472
Santa Trinira 49

Sasserti Chapel 318, 351-3, 352, 353
Utfizi 49, 677, 677
Villa La Gallina 322, 322
Florence: View with the Chain (Francesco di
Lorenzo Rosselli, attrib.) 21, 21
Florentine Academy 649
Florentine art 295-317, 319-57, 608, 660
High Renaissance 443-85
painting 45-52, 73-101, 138—45,
203-20, 223
sculpture 181-201, 261
tomb sculpture 261
see also names of individual artists
FONTANA, LAVINIA 682-3
Noli Me Tangere 683, 683
Self-Portrait at the Spinet 682-3, 683
Fontana, Prospero 682
Fontana family, Ewer Basin with Europa
and the Bull 675, 675
Fonte Gaia, Siena 199, 199-200, 200
FOPPA, VINCENZO 433
Crucifixion 433, 433
Foreshortened Christ (Andrea Mantegna)
403, 403-4
foreshortening 79
FORLI, MELOZZO DA
see Melozzo da Forll
Fortitude, Prudence, and Temperance
(Raphael) 517, 520

Fountain of Neptune, Piazza della Signoria,
Florence (Bartolommeo Ammanati)
665, 665

Four Crowned Martyrs (Nanni di Banco)
193-5, 194

FRANCESCO, PIERO DELLA
see Piero della Francesco
FRANCESCO DEL COSSA
see Cossa, Francesco del
Francesco del Pugliese 356
Francesco delle Opere (Perugino) 372-3,

373

FRANCESCO DI GIORGIO 367, 365-7
Coronation of the Virgin 365, 365-6
Flagellation 366, 366
Santa Maria del Calcinaio, Cortona
(with Antonio da Sangallo the
Elder) 366-7, 367

FRANCESCO DI LORENZO ROSSELLI,
Florence: View with the Chain (wood-
cut, attrib.) 21, 21

Francis I, King of France 462, 468-9, 565,
617, 662-3, 669

Francis of Assisi, St. 41, 44, 51, 95
Franciscan Order 64
Frederick II, Emperor 57
Frederick III, Emperor 359

Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany, Cathedral
92

fresco painting 30, 30-2
fruit stone carvings 570-1
Funeral of St. Francis (Giotto di Bondone)
90, 89

Funerary Monument of Cansignorio della
Scab (Bonino da Campione) 156, 156

GADDI, AGNOLO 28, 73, 145

Legend of the True Cross (Santa Croce,
Florence) 145

Triumph of Hera clius over Chosroes
145, 146

GADDI, TADDEO 28, 69, 97

Baroncelli Chapel frescoes 97, 97-8
Annunciation to the Shepherds 98, 98
Last Supper with the Tree of Life, refec-
tory, Santa Croce, Florence 98-9,
99

Galatea (Raphael) 535-6, 536, 555
GALIZIA, FEDE 689

Portrait of Paolo Morigia 689, 689
GAMBELLO, ANTONIO

Arsenale Gateway, Venice (attrib.) 430,
430

San Zaccaria, Venice, facade (with
Mauro Codussi) 430-1, 431
Garden of the Peaceful Arts (Lorenzo Costa)
410

Gates of Paradise, Baptistery, Florence
(Lorenzo Ghiberti) 238, 249-51
The Creation 250, 250
Jacob and Esau 250, 250-1
Self-Portrait 251, 251
Genoa 21

Palazzo del Principe 566, 566
GENTILE DA FABRIANO 203-6, 376,

389, 395, 597

Adoration of the Magi (Strozzi altar-
piece 203-6, 204, 224
Flight into Egypt 203, 206, 206
Nativity 203, 205, 205-6
Presentation in the Temple 203
gesso 28

II Gesu, Rome (Giacomo da Vignola and
Giacomo della Porta) 685-7, 685,

686, 687

Gherardini, Lisa di Antonio Maria 464
Ghibellines 74, 545

GHIBERTI, LORENZO 55, 100, 142, 160,
181,206, 263, 295
Baptismal font, Siena 197, 198, 359
Commentaries 183

Gates of Paradise, Baptistery, Florence
238, 249-51
The Creation 250, 250
Jacob and Esau 250, 250-1
Self-Portrait 251, 251
North Doors, Baptistery, Florence
183-6, 184, 185
Annunciation 183-5, 185
Flagellation 185 , 185-6
Sacrifice of Isaac 182-2, 182
St. John the Baptist 186, 186-8, 188
Ghirlandaio, Davide 350, 351
GHIRLANDAIO, DOMENICO DEL

(Domenico Bigordi) 319, 332, 350-6,
470

Cappella Maggiore, Santa Maria

Novella, Florence 353-5, 354,

470

Birth of the Virgin 355, 355
Last Supper, refectory, Ognissanti,

Florence 350-1, 351
Old Man with a Young Boy 354, 354-5
Sassetti Chapel, Santa Trinita, Florence
318, 351-3,352, 353
Confirmation of the Franciscan Rule
by Pope Honorius III 351-2,
352

Nativity and Adoration of the
Shepherds 352-3, 353
Resurrection of the Notary's Son 318,
351

GIAMBOLOGNA

see Giovanni Bologna
GIANCRISTOFORO ROMANO, Portrait
Medal of Isabella d’Este 408, 408
gilding 28-9, 34
Giocondo, Francesco del 464
GIORGIO, FRANCESCO DI
see Francesco di Giorgio
GIORGIONE (Zorzi da Castelfranco) 420,
591,592-5, 597, 618, 620
Concert Champetre (Pastoral Concert)
(possibly by Titian) 595, 596
Enthroned Madonna with Sts. Liberalis
and Francis, Castelfranco
Cathedral 593, 593
Sleeping Venus (finished by Titian)
594-5, 595

Tempestuous Landscape with the Soldier
and the Gypsy 593, 594
giornate 30-1

GIOTTO DI BONDONE 28, 57, 64, 73-95,
100-1

Arena Chapel, Padua 74-86
Annunciation 80, 80-1
iconography 76
Inconstancy 86, 86
Injustice 8 6,86
Joachim Takes Refuge in the
Wilderness 78, 78-9
Justice 8 6, 86
Kiss of Judas 83, 83—4
Lamentation 84, 84
Last Judgment 72, 76, 84-5, 85
Meeting at the Golden Gate 79, 79-80
Nativity and Annunciation to the
Shepherds 81, 81-2
Noli Me Tangere 77, 84
Raising of Lazarus 77, 82, 82-3
Art of Sculpture design (Andrea Pisano)
(attrib.) 24

Bardi Chapel, Santa Croce, Florence 88,
88-9

Funeral of St. Francis 90, 89
St. Francis Undergoing the Test by
Fire Before the Sultan of Egypt
89, 89

Stigmatization of St. Francis 90-1, 91
Campanile, Florence Cathedral 68, 92,
92-3, 93

Coronation of the Virgin with Saints,

altarpiece, Baroncelli Chapel 97, 98
Crucifix 74, 74

Enthroned Madonna with Saints

(Ognissanti Madonna) 86, 87, 88
Peruzzi Chapel, Santa Croce, Florence
88-9

San Francesco Upper Church, Assisi 93-5
Giovanna da Piacenza 572-3
Giovanna II, Queen of Naples 384
GIOVANNI, MATTEO
see Matteo di Giovanni
GIOVANNI D’ALEMAGNA 397

Coronation of the Virgin (with Antonio
Vivarini) 394, 394-5
Giovanni d’Ambrogio 164

722 • INDEX

GIOVANNI BOLOGNA (Giambologna;
Jean Boulogne) 667-8
Capture of the Sabine Woman , Loggia
dei Lanzi, Florence 668, 668
Mercury 667 , 667-8
GIOVANNI DA FIESOLE
see Angelico, Fra
GIOVANNI DA MILANO 145
Pieta 144 , 145
GIOVANNI DA UDINE
Villa Madama 531, S32
GIOVANNI DI SER GIOVANNI
see Scheggia

GIOVANNINO DE’ GRASSI 153, 154
Visconti Hours 153, 153
Giovio, Paolo 559
GIRALDI, GUGLIELMO

Divine Comedy (Dante) 382, 383
Giudici e Notai, Arte dei 24
GIROLAMO DA CREMONA

Aristotle Lecturing Averroes , illustration
427, 427

GIULIANO DA MAIANO

Intarsia decoration, North Sacristy,
Florence Cathedral 306-7, 307
Studiolo of Federico da Montefeltro,
Palazzo Ducale, Urbino 381 ,
381-2, 382

GIULIO ROMANO 522, 526, 527, 529,
534, 538, 586-9

Cupid Pointing Out Psyche to the Three
Graces (with Raphael), Loggia of
Psyche, Villa Farnesina, Rome
538, 539, 541

Palazzo del Te, Mantua 586-8, 587 ,

588

The Gods on Mount Olympus and the
Fall of the Giants 587-8, 589
Wedding Feast of Cupid and Psyche
587-8, 588

Villa Madama 531, 532
glassware 592

The Gods on Mount Olympus and the Fall
of the Giants (Giulio Romano) 587-8,
589

GOES, HUGO VAN DER

Adoration of the Shepherds (Portinari
altarpiece) 347, 347, 352
Goffin, Rona 606-7
gold/gilding 28-9, 34

Golden House of the Emperor Nero, Rome
19, 349, 374, 488
Gombrich, E.H. 337, 339
Gonzaga, Cecilia, portrait medal (Antonio
Pisanello) 392, 392
Gonzaga, Federigo 405, 576, 586
Gonzaga, Francesco 406, 408
Gonzaga, Ludovico 245, 290, 403, 404
Gonzaga family 239, 389, 410
Good and Bad Government (Ambrogio
Lorenzetti) 124, 125-7, 125, 126-7 ,
128

Gothic art 295

architecture 26, 35, 57-8, 65-71,

150-1, 154-6, 159, 164, 174
Flamboyant style 429
International style 145, 159, 183, 203,
393

painting 73, 137-48, 203, 220
sculpture 57-64, 181-99
tapestries 155-6

GOZZOLI, BENOZZO 312-13, 376
Chapel, Palazzo Medici-Riccardi,

Florence 294

Procession of the Magi 161, 312,
312-13

GRASSI, GIOVANNINO DE’
see Giovannino de’ Grassi
Gregory I, Pope 569
grotteschi 349
Guelphs 74, 160, 359
GUIDO DI PIETRO
see Angelico, Fra

guilds (Arti) 24-5, 74, 160, 187, 194, 621
Gutenberg, Johannes 36
Gypsy Madonna ( Madonna and Child)
(Titian) 597, 597

HAGESANDROS, ATHENODORUS, AND
POLYDORUS, Laocoon and His Sons
19, 488, 488

Harrowing of Hell, Resurrection, Ascension
(Donatello) 300, 301
Hartt, Frederick 37, 160, 196, 319, 509,

574

Head of a Man with a Long Beard
(Perugino) 38

Head of a Youth ; Architectural Studies for
Sforza Castle (Leonardo da Vinci)

449, 449, 460

Head of St. John the Baptist Handed to
Salome (Fra Filippo Lippi) 236, 237
Healing of the Lame Man (cartoon)
(Raphael) 527-8, 528

Healing of the Lame Man and the Raising of
Tabitha (Masolino) 212, 212-13
HEEMSKERCK, MAARTEN VAN,

Drawing of the Belvedere Torso 488,
489

Hercules and Antaeus (Antonio del
Pollaiuolo) 320, 320-1
Hercules and the Hydra (Antonio del
Pollaiuolo) 320, 320-1
High Renaissance art 24
in Florence 443-85
in Rome 487-541, 546
in Venice 591-647
Holy Night (Correggio) 574, 574
Homer 520
Honorius III, Pope 53
Horace 338

Horseman Trampling on Foe , Study for an
Equestrian Monument to Francesco
Sforza (Leonardo da Vinci) 4 55,457
Hospital of Santa Maria della Scala, Siena
362, 363, 364

humanism 20, 159-60, 174, 191, 192, 193,
223, 239, 242, 298, 313, 338; see also
Alberti, Leonbattista; Platonic
Academy

Hunting Scene (Piero di Cosimo) 356-7, 357

Immaculate Conception, Confraternity of
the 455
impasti 597

Inconstancy (Giotto di Bondone) 86, 86

Inferno (Dante) 79, 651

Injustice (Giotto di Bondone) 86, 86

Innocent II, Pope 42

Innocent III, Pope 21, 406

Innocent VIII, Pope 325, 487

intarsia 307, 381

intarsia decoration, North Sacristy, Florence
Cathedral (Giuliano da Maiano)
306-7, 307

International Gothic style 145, 159, 183,
203, 393
intonaco 30

Invention of the True Cross (Piero della
Francesca) 285, 285

ISAAC MASTER, Isaac Discovers that He
Has Been Tricked by Jacob, San
Francesco Upper Church, Assisi 54, 55
Isaiah (Nanni di Banco) 476
Isotta degli Atti 241
Italy

city-states 20-4, 41
landscape 17
map 16

Jacob and Esau (Lorenzo Ghiberti) 250 ,
250-1

JACOBELLO DEL FIORE 393

Justice with the Archangels Michael and
Gabriel 394, 394
JACOPO DAL PONTE
see Bassano, Jacopo
JACOPO DEL SELLAIO

cassone (with Biagio d 'Antonio and

Zanobi di Domenico) 331, 331-2
JACOPO ROBUSTI
see Tintoretto

Jacopo Strada (Titian) 611 , 611-12
JACOPO TATTI

see Sansovino, Jacopo
JEAN BOULOGNE

see Giovanni Bologna
Jesuit Order 685

Joachim Takes Refuge in the Wilderness
(Giotto di Bondone) 78, 78-9
John the Baptist , from the Griffoni altar-
piece (Francesco del Cossa) 437, 437
John VIII Paleologus 392
Joseph in Egypt (Jacopo Carucci da
Pontormo) 558-9, 559
Judgment of Paris, engraving after Raphael
(Marcantonio Raimondi), 530-1, 531
Judith and Holofernes (Donatello) 34, 299,
300, 663, 668

Julius II, Pope (Cardinal Giuliano della

Rovere) 376-7, 485, 487-92, 494-9,
502, 505, 512, 514-17, 520-1, 523,
525, 534, 543, 592, 617
medal (Caradosso) 487
tomb (Michelangelo Buonarroti) 468,
496-7, 497, 512-15, 513 , 552-4,
553, 554, 652, 660-1
Julius III, Pope 624

Jupiter and Ganymede (Correggio) 576, 576
Jupiter and Io (Correggio) 576, 577
Justice (Giotto di Bondone) 86, 86
Justice with the Archangels Michael and

Gabriel (Jacobello del Fiore) 394, 394
Justinus, Marcus Junianus 541
Justus of Ghent 376

Kiss of Judas (Giotto di Bondone) 83, 83-4

Ladislaus, King of Naples 160
LAFRERI, ANTONIO

Speculum Romanae magnificentiae 18,

Lamentation

(Andrea del Sarto) 556, 556
(Donatello) 300, 301
(Giotto di Bondone) 84, 84
(St. Pantaleimon, fresco) 44, 44
Lana, Arte della 24

INDEX * 7 2 3

Landucci, Luca 328

Laocoon and His Sons (Hagesandros,

Athenodorus, and Polydorus) 19, 488,
488

lapis lazuli 29, 651
Last Judgment

(Pietro Cavallini) 56-7, 56-7
(Coppo di Marcovaldo) 47, 48
(Giotto di Bondone) 72, 76, 84-5, 85
(Lorenzo Maitani) 132, 133
(Michelangelo Buonarroti) 32, 324, 334,
371, 499, 648 , 649-52, 650, 651.
661, 671

Last Judgment , Paradise , and Heii iNardo di
Clone) 138 , 142-3
Last Supper

(Giovanni Pietro da Birago, after
Leonardo da Vinci) 462, 462
(Domenico del Ghirlandaio) 350-1, 351
(Leonardo da Vinci) 199, 457-62, 460,
461

(Tintoretto) 630-2, 631
Last Supper and Resurrection , Crucifixion ,
and Entombment (Andrea del
Castagno) 262, 271-3, 272
Last Supper with the Tree of Life (Taddeo
Gaddi) 98-9, 99
Laudesi, the 103
LAURANA, FRANCESCO 379
Battista Sforza 291, 379, 379
LAURANA, LUCIANO 247, 379

Palazzo Ducale, Urbino 379-80, 380
View of an Ideal City (posssibly by Piero
della Francesca) 380 , 380-1
Laurana brothers 378
Laurentian Library, San Lorenzo, Florence
550-2

Entrance Hall 550-1, 551
Plan for the triangular rare-book room
552, 552

Reading Room 551-2, 552
League of Cambrai 389, 592
Legend of the True Cross (Piero della

Francesca) 282, 283-7, 284, 285, 286,
287,288
iconography 281

Legenda Maior (Bonaventura) 91, 94
Leo I, Pope 523

Leo X, Pope 33, 298, 468, 471, 523, 525,
526, 528-31, 534, 543, 544, 545, 559
portrait by Raphael 526, 526
see also Medici, Cardinal Giovanni de’
LEONARDO DA VINCI 25, 27, 297, 332,
335_6, 443-69, 477, 490, 491, 558,
617, 662

Adoration of the Magi 335-6, 453,
453-4

Annunciation 450-1, 451, 454
Architectural Persepctive and

Background Figures , for the
Adoration of the Magi 453, 454
Baptism of Christ (with Andrea del

Verrocchio) 327, 327-8, 450, 450,
467

Battle of Anghiari 467-8, 554
Bird’s-eye View of the Chiana Valley,
Showing Arezzo, Cortona,

Perugia, and Siena 446, 446
Deluge 469, 469

Head of a Youth ; Architectural Studies
for Sforza Castle 449, 449, 460
Horseman Trampling on Foe, Study for
an Equestrian Monument to
Francesco Sforza 455, 457
Last Supper , Santa Maria della Grazie,
Milan 199, 457-62, 460, 461

Madonna and Child with St. Anne 464,
465

Madonna of the Rocks 449, 455, 456
Male Nude 446-7, 447
Mona Lisa 464—7, 466
perspective diagram from manuscript A
163, 163

Plans and Perspective Views of Domed
Churches 448 , 448-9
Portrait of Ginevra de’ Benci 451-2,

452, 464

Sketches for the Last Supper;

Architectural and Geometric
Sketches 457, 458

Star-of-Bethlehem and Other Plants 445,
445

Storm Breaking over a Valley 444, 445
Studies of a Left Leg, Showing Bones
and Tendons 447, 448
Studies of Water Movements 449, 449
Study of Composition of Last Supper
457, 459

Study of Drapery for a Seated Figure
450, 451

Study of the Head of the Angel for

Madonna of the Rocks 455, 457
Treatise on Painting 446
Two Sheets of Battle Studies 468, 468
Virgin and Child with Sts. Anne and
John the Baptist 463 , 463-4
Vitruvian Man: Study of the Human
Body 446-7, 447
LEOPARDI, ALESSANDRO

Equestrian Monument of Bartolommeo
Colleoni (with Andrea del
Verrocchio) 329-30, 330
Liberal Arts 24-5, 249, 325, 446, 515, 621
Liberation of St. Peter from Prison
(Raphael) 514, 521,523
Liberation of the Companions of St. James ,
Chapel of St. Felix, Sant’Antonio,
Padua (Jacopo Avanzi) 151, 151
Library of San Marco, Venice 641, 641-2
Libyan Sibyl (Michelangelo Buonarroti) 510,
510; Study for 510, 511
Limbourg brothers 154, 206
Linaioli e Rigattieri, Arte dei 189
linear perspective 161-3
LIPPI, FILIPPINO 232, 319, 332, 346-50,
443

Brancacci Chapel, Santa Maria del

Carmine, Florence 208, 209, 347
Raising of the Son of Theophilus and
the Enthronement of St. Peter
(with Masaccio) 215, 215
Strozzi Chapel, Santa Maria Novella,
Florence 348, 349-50
St. Philip Exorcising the Demon in the
Temple of Mars 349 , 349-50
Vision of St. Bernard 346
LIPPI, FRA FILIPPO 160, 224, 232-7, 249,
295, 332, 347, 389
The Adoration of the Infant Jesus
236-7, 237

Annunciation 232-3, 233
Madonna and Child (Tarquinia
Madonna) 232, 232
Madonna and Child with the Birth of
the Virgin and the Meeting of
Joachim and Anna 234, 234
Prato Cathedral frescoes 235, 235-6,
236

Feast of Herod 236, 236
Head of St. John the Baptist Handed
to Salome 236, 237
Livorno 434

Loggetta, Venice 642, 642
Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence 663, 663, 668,
668

Loggia della Signoria 71, 71
Lomazzo, G.P. 478
Lombardian art 153 — 4
LOMBARDO, ANTONIO 428
LOMBARDO, PIETRO 428

Scuola Grande di San Marco, Venice,
facade (with Mauro Codussi and
Tullio Lombardo) 431, 431
Tomb of Doge Pietro Mocenigo (with
Antonio and Tullio Lombardo)
428, 429

LOMBARDO, TULLIO 428, 616

St. Anthony of Padua and the Miracle of
the Miser’s Heart , Chapel of St.
Anthony, Santo, Padua 616, 616
Scuola Grande di San Marco, Venice,
facade (with Mauro Codussi and
Pietro Lombardo) 431, 431
Lombardo family 428-30, 432
Loredan family 431-2
LORENZETTI, AMBROGIO 119, 122-7
Good and Bad Government , Sala della
Pace 124, 125-7, 125, 126-7 , 128
Presentation in the Temple 122, 123,
124-5

LORENZETTI, PIETRO 119-22
Birth of the Virgin 122, 122
Madonna and Child with Saints,

Annunciation, and Assumption ,
Pieve di Santa Maria, Arezzo 119,
119-21

San Francesco Lower Church, Assisi
Descent from the Cross 120 , 121,
121-2

LORENZO DA PELAGO, stained glass
Prato Cathedral 235

LORENZO MONACO (Piero di Giovanni)

145-8

Coronation of the Virgin 14 6, 147, 148
Descent from the Cross frame and pin-
nacles 224, 225
Nativity 148, 148

LOTTO, LORENZO 591-2, 613-16
Annunciation 590 , 613-14
Madonna and Child with Saints

Catherine and Thomas 614, 614
Portrait of a Woman as Lucretia 614 ,
614-15

Louis of Toulouse, St. 111-12

St. Louis of Toulouse Crowing Robert
of Anjou, King of Naples and
Scenes from the Life of St. Louis
of Toulouse (Simone Martini)
111 - 12 , 112

Louis XII, King of France 455, 468, 523,
617

LUCA DELLA ROBBIA
see Robbia, Luca della
Lucca 21, 45

painting in 44-4
Lucretius 338, 356
Lucrezia, Madonna 572
Luther, Martin 492, 525

MACCHIETTI, GIROLAMO 680-1

Baths at Pozzuoli , Studiolo, Palazzo dei
Priori, Florence 681, 681
Machiavelli, Niccolo 161, 463, 546
Maddalena Strozzi Doni (Raphael) 484, 484
Madonna and Child

(Giovanni Bellini) 415, 416

724 • INDEX

(Coppo di Marcovaldo) 47, 47
(Duccio di Buoninsegna) 29, 29, 104
(Giovanni Pisano) 64, 64
(Masolino) 208, 208
(Nicola Pisano) 60, 60
Madonna and Child (Gypsy Madonna)
(Titian) 597, 597

Madonna and Child ( Rucellai Madonna )
(Duccio di Buoninsegna) 103, 103-4
Madonna and Child (Tarquinia Madonna)
(Fra Filippo Lippi) 232, 232
Madonna and Child Enthroned (Bernardo
Daddi) 139, 140
Madonna and Child with Saints
(Masaccio) 207, 207-8
(Piero della Francesca) 290, 291
Madonna and Child with Saints Catherine
and Thomas (Lorenzo Lotto) 614, 614
Madonna and Child with Saints ,

Annunciation, and Assumption (Pietro
Lorenzetti) 119, 119-21
Madonna and Child with St. Anne
(Leonardo da Vinci) 464, 465
Madonna and Child with Sts. Francis, John
the Baptist, Zenobius, and Lucy (St.
Lucy altarpiece) (Domenico
Veneziano) 268, 269, 270
Madonna and Child with Sts. Jerome and
Mary Magdalen (Correggio) 573, 573
Madonna and Child with Sts. Peter and
John the Evangelist (Nardo di Cione)
142, 143

Madonna and Child with the Birth of the
Virgin and the Meeting of Joachim
and Anna (Fra Filippo Lippi) 234, 234
Madonna and Saints (San Marco altarpiece)
(Fra Angelico) 226-8, 227
Madonna della Candeletta (Carlo Crivelli)
425-6, 426

Madonna del Fuoco (woodcut) 220, 221
Madonna di Loreto (Caravaggio) 689-91,
690

Madonna del Popolo (Federico Barocci) 688,
689

Madonna di San Biagio, Montepulciano
542, 544, 582, 582, 583
Madonna of Humility (Domenico di
Bartolo) 362, 362

Madonna of Humility with Donor (Jacopo
Bellini) 394, 394-5

Madonna of the Harpies (Andrea del Sarto)
555, 555-6

Madonna of the Long Neck (Parmigianino)
578, 579

Madonna of the Magnificat (Sandro
Botticelli) 336, 336-7

Madonna of the Meadows (Raphael) 482-3,
483

Madonna of the Pesaro Family (Titian)
603^1, 604, 691

Madonna of the Rocks (Leonardo da Vinci)
449, 455, 456

Madonna of the Stairs (Michelangelo
Buonarroti) 470 , 471

Madonna of the Victory (Andrea Mantegna)
406-7, 407
Maesta

(Duccio di Buoninsegna) 104-9, 105,

106, 107

(Simone Martini) 110, 110-11, 111
Maginnis, Hayden 138
MAIANO, BENEDETTO DA
see Benedetto da Maiano
MAIANO, GIULIANO DA
see Giuliano da Maiano
Mainardi, Bastiano 350

MAITANI, LORENZO

Orvieto Cathedral, Siena 128-33, 129
Last Judgment 132, 133
Scenes from Genesis 130, 131, 132,
132

majolica ware

bowl (Nicola da Urbino) 409, 409
plate (Francesco Xanto Avelli da
Rovigo) 541, 541

Malatesta, Sigismondo 241, 242, 288
Malatesta family 239
Malatesta Temple, Rimini (Leonbattista
Alberti) 240, 241, 241-2, 285
Male Nude (Leonardo da Vinci) 446-7, 447
Man with the Glove (Titian) 605, 605
Manet, £douard, Dejeuner sur Vherbe 530-1
MANETTI, ANTONIO 161-2, 169

Chapel of the Cardinal of Portugal, San
Miniato, Florence 303-6, 304,

305

Intarsia decoration, North Sacristy,
Florence Cathedral 307
Manetti, Giannozzo 174, 296
maniera 660
Mannerism 543

MANTEGNA, ANDREA 25, 395, 397-408,
617, 685

Agony in the Garden 402-3, 403
Bacchanal with a Wine Vat 407, 407-8
Camera picta, Palazzo Ducale, Mantua
404-6, 405, 406
Arrival of Cardinal Francesco

Gonzaga 404, 404-5
Enthroned Madonna and Child with
Saints (San Zeno altarpiece)
399-402, 400, 401
Crucifixion 402, 402
Foreshortened Christ 403, 403—4
Madonna of the Victory 406-7, 407
Ovetari Chapel, Eremitani Church,
Padua, frescoes 397-9
Baptism of Hermogenes 397,398
Martyrdom of St James 399, 399
St. James before Herod Agrippa 397,

398

St. James Led to Execution 398-9,

399

Pallas Expelling the Vices from the
Garden of Virtue 410
Parnassus 410, 410
Mantua 617

Palazzo Ducale, Camera Picta 404-6,
405, 406

Palazzo del Te 586-8, 587, 588
Sala dei Giganti 587-8, 589
Sala di Psiche 587-8, 588
Sant’ Andrea 245, 245-6, 246
marble 33, 33

MARCOVALDO, COPPO DI
see Coppo di Marcovaldo
Marcus Aurelius, equestrian monument to
19, 19, 257, 656

Marcus Aurelius Sacrificing Before the
Capitoline Temple (ancient Roman
relief) 20, 20

Marriage at Cana (Paolo Veronese) 634, 635
Marriage of Alexander and Roxana, bed-
room of Villa Farnesina, Rome
(Sodoma) 536-8, 537
Marriage of St Francis to Lady Poverty,
Sansepolcro altarpiece (Sassetta) 361,
361-2

Marriage of the Virgin (Raphael) 480, 481
Marsuppini, Carlo: tomb (Desiderio da
Settignano) 302-3, 302, 303
Martin V, Pope 148

MARTINI, SIMONE

see SIMONE MARTINI
Martyrdom of St. James (Andrea Mantegna)
399, 399

Martyrdom of St. Laurence (Titian) 608-10,
609

Mary, Sister of Moses (Giovanni Pisano) 62,
62-3

MASACCIO (Tommaso di ser Giovanni) 30,
206-7, 249, 527

Brancacci Chapel, Santa Maria del

Carmine, Florence 208-10, 209,
210

Expulsion 213, 213-14, 214
Raising of the Son of Theophilus and
the Enthronement of St. Peter
(with Filippino Lippi) 215, 215
Peter Healing with His Shadow 214,
214

St. Peter Baptizing the Neophytes 203,
212

Tribute Money 210-12, 211
influence of 223, 224, 232
Madonna and Child with Saints 207,
207-8

Pisa polyptych 215
Adoration of the Magi 21 7, 21 ”-18
Crucifixion 216-7, 217
Crucifixion of St. Peter 218 ,218
Enthroned Madonna and Child 216.
216

Trinity with Mary, John the Evangelist,
and Two Donors, Santa Maria
Novella, Florence 218, 219, 220,
691

Maser, Villa Barbaro 644, 644-5
MASO DI BANCO, St. Sylvester Sealing the
Dragon's Mouth and Resuscitating
Two Pagan Magicians 95, 95-6
Maso di Bartolommeo 254
MASOLINO (Tommaso di Cristofano Fini)
206-7

Brancacci Chapel, Santa Maria del

Carmine, Florence 208-10, 209,
210

Healing of the Lame Man and the

Raising ofTabitha 212, 212-13
Temptation 213, 213-14
Madonna and Child 208, 208
Mass of Bolsena (Raphael) 521-3, 522
Massacre of the Innocents

(Matteo di Giovanni) 364, 364
(Giovanni Pisano) 63, 63
MASTER OF THE ST. FRANCIS CYCLE
Dream of Innocent III 94, 94
St. Francis Praying Before the Crucifix
at San Damiano 94, 94
St. Francis Renouncing His Worldly
Goods 94, 94

MASTER OF THE TRIUMPH OF DEATH
134-5

The Three Living and the Three Dead,
The Triumph of Death, The Last
Judgment, and Hell 134-5, 134-5
MATTEO DE’ PASTI
see Pasti, Matteo de’

MATTEO DI GIOVANNI 364

Massacre of the Innocents 364, 364
Maximilian II, Emperor 667
mazzocchio 265
MAZZOLA, FRANCESCO
see Parmigianino

MAZZONI, GUIDO, Adoration of the
Child 440, 440
Mechanical Arts 24-5, 621
Medal of Julius II (Caradosso) 487

INDEX • 7 2 5

medals see portraiture
Medici, Alessandro de’ 546-7
Medici, Anna Maria Louisa de’ 161
Medici, Cardinal Giovanni de’ 352; see also
Leo X, Pope
Medici, Carlo de’ 235
Medici, Cosimo {“the Elder”) 37, 160-1,
173, 174—5, 179, 223, 224, 226, 232,
239, 261, 296, 299, 313, 332, 347
Portrait Medal 161, 161
Medici, Cosimo I, Grand Duke of Tuscanv
467, 649, 662, 663, 664, 669, 677 '
Cosimo 1 as Patron of Pisa (relief by
Pierino da Vinci) 660-1. 661
portrait bust by Cellini 664. 664
Medici, Duke Ferdinand I 434
Medici, Francesco I 668. 6“4, 677
Medici, Giovanni de* (son of Cosimo de
Medici “The Elder") 332
Medici, Giovanni di Bicci de’ 160, 170
Medici. Giuliano de 1 (later Duke of
Nemours) 298, 352, 543
Medici, Giuliano de’ (son of Piero de’

Medici “The Gouty”) 297, 313, 332,
337, 356, 471
tomb see Medici Tombs
Medici, Giulio de’, Cardinal see Clement
VII, Pope

Medici, Lorenzo de’, Duke of Urbino 543-4,
545, 559

Medici, Lorenzo de’ (“The Magnificent”)
161, 176, 254, 265, 296-8, 307, 309,
313, 316, 319, 324, 325, 332, 335,
337, 352, 385, 470-1, 472
birth salver ( Desco da Parto ) 297, 297
tomb see Medici Tombs
Medici, Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco 324, 338,
339, 342

Medici, Piero de’ (“The Gouty”) 161, 224,
236, 267, 296, 297, 313, 316, 332
Medici, Piero de’ (“The Unlucky”) 161, 298,
342, 471, 472, 352
Medici bank 296

Medici family 37, 71, 160-1, 223, 256,
310-11, 313, 328, 329, 332, 477,

543, 668

Medici Madonna (Michelangelo Buonarroti)
545, 548, 548 , 550

Medici Palace see Palazzo Medici-Riccardi
Medici e Speziali, Arte dei 24, 122, 146, 207
Medici Tombs, Medici Chapel, San Lorenzo,
Florence (Michelangelo Buonarroti)
545-50, 546, 547, 549, 550
Dawn 547 , 547-8, 550, 550, 665
Day 471, 547, 547-8, 549
Dusk 547 , 547-8, 549
Night 547 , 547-8, 549, 550, 608
Meditation on the Passion (Vittore
Carpaccio) 424, 424-5
Meeting at the Golden Gate (Giotto di
Bondone) 79, 79-80

Meeting of Christ and John the Baptist as
Youths (Arconati-Visconti Tondo)
(Desiderio da Settignano) 302-3, 303
Meeting of Solomon and the Queen of
Sheba (Piero della Francesca) 284,
284-5

Mehmet II, Sultan of Constantinople 411
Melissa (Dosso Dossi) 618 , 618-19
MELOZZO DA FORLl 376-8
Christ in Glory 377, 377
frescoes. Sacristy of St. Mark, Basilica of
Santa Casa, Loreto 378, 378
Sixtus IV della Rovere, his Nephews ,
and Platina, his Librarian 376 ,
376-7

Melzi, Francesco 446
Memling, Hans 372, 412
Memmi, Lippo 114
Mercanzia 328

Mercury (Giovanni Bologna) 667, 667-8
MESSINA, ANTONELLA DA
see Antonella da Messina
Metaphrastes, Simeon 44
MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI 19, 25,
33, 37, 166, 173, 208, 200, 249, 353,
365, 367, 443, 463, 469-80, 492,
496-515, 520, 541, 544-54, 622,
649-59, 660
Bacchus 473, 473

Battle of Cascina 467, 478-80, 496;
Study for 479; copy by Aristotile
da Sangallo 479

Battle of Lapiths and Centaurs 471 ,
471-2

Campidoglio, Rome 656, 657
Palazzo dei Conservatori 656-7, 658
Captives 497, 513, 515, 552-4
“Blockhead” Captive 554, 554
“Dying Slave” 514, 514
Rebellious Slave 514, 514
Conversion of St. Paul, Pauline Chapel,
Vatican 652-3, 653

Crucifix (attrib.), Santo Spirito, Florence
472, 472

Crucifixion 658, 658
Crucifixion of St. Peter, Pauline Chapel,
Vatican 652, 652-3
David 33, 442, 476-7, 478
Doni Madonna 474-6, 475
Drawing after Donatello's Bronze David
476, 476

Last Judgment 32, 324, 334, 371, 499,
648 , 649-52, 650, 651, 661, 671
Madonna of the Stairs 470, 471
Medici Madonna 545, 548, 548, 550
Medici Tombs, Medici Chapel, San
Lorenzo, Florence 545-50, 546,
547, 549, 550

Dawn 547, 547-8, 550, 550, 665
Day 471,547, 547-8, 549
Dusk 547, 547-8, 549
Night 547, 547-8, 549, 550, 608
Moses, San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome 497,
513 , 513-14

Palazzo Farnese, Rome (with Antonio da
Sangallo the Younger) 584—6, 584,
653, 654

Pieta (Florence) 658-9, 659
Pieta (Milan) 659, 659
Pieta (Vatican) 473—4, 474
Resurrection 548, 549
San Lorenzo, Florence
facade 544-45, 545
Laurentian Library 550-2
Entrance Hall 550-1, 551
Plan for the triangular rare-book
room 552, 552
Reading Room 551-2, 552
Medici Chapel 545-50, 546 see also
Medici Tombs above
St. Matthew 477-8, 478
St Peter’s 493, 653-6, 655, 656 (model
for dome (with Giacomo della
Porta and Luigi Vanvitelli) 656,
656

Sistine Chapel 486
ceiling frescoes 324, 498-512, 500-1
Creation of Adam 507, 507-9
Creation of Eve 504— 5, 506
Creation of Sun, Moon, and Planets
30, 508, 509

Cumaean Sibyl 504, 505, 506
David Beheading Goliath 511, 511
Deluge 502-3, 503
Fall of Adam and Eve and

Expulsion 504, 505, 505
iconography 500-1
Libyan Sibyl 510, 510; Study for
510, 511

Prophet Isaiah 503, 504
Separation of Light from Darkness
509, 509-10
study 498

Worship of the Brazen Serpent 5 12,
512, 565, 575

Last Judgment 32, 324, 334, 371,

499, 648, 649-52, 650, 651,
661, 671

sonnet with a caricature of the artist...
499, 502, 502

tomb for Pope Julius II 468, 496-7, 497,
512-15, 513, 552— 4, 553, 554,
652, 660-1
Victory 552-4, 553

MICHELOZZO DI BARTOLOMMEO
173, 226, 254

lantern, Florence Cathedral 165, 165-6
Medici Palace, attrib. 174-8, 175, 176,
177, 178

San Marco monastery, Florence 229,

229

library 179, 179
Michiel, Marcantonio 593
middle classes 41
Milan 149,389,617
Cathedral 154, 154-5
Ospedale Maggiore 433
Santa Maria delle Grazie 490, 490
Last Supper (Leonardo da Vinci) 199,
457-62, 460, 461
Santa Maria presso San Satiro 489,
489-90, 490

Milanese art 152-5, 433—4
Milanesi, Gaetano 271
MILANO, GIOVANNI DA
see Giovanni da Milano
MINO DA FIESOLE, Portrait of Piero de *
Medici 261, 261

The Miracle of St. Michael on Mt. Gargano
(Domenico Beccafumi) 569-70, 570
Miracle of St. Zenobius (Domenico
Veneziano) 211,271

Miracle of the Believing Donkey (Donatello)
258, 259

Miracle of the Deacon Justinian (San Marco
altarpiece) (Fra Angelico) 228, 228
models, use of 27, 33—4
Mona Lisa (Leonardo da Vinci) 464-7, 466
Montaigne, Michel de 684
Montaperti, Battle of 47
Montefeltro, Count Federico da, Duke of
Urbino 288, 290, 376, 379, 381
portrait by Piero della Francesca 290-2,
291,292

Studiolo 381, 381-2, 382
Montepulciano

Madonna di San Biagio, 542, 544, 582,
582, 583

Palazzo Tarugi 582—4, 583
The Months, Eagle’s Tower, Castello del
Buonconsiglio, Trent 155, 155-6
MORETTO (Alessandro Bonvicino) 620-1
Ecce Homo with Angel 620, 620
Portrait of Young Man 620, 620-1
mosaics

Baptistery, Florence 47, 48
Cefalu Cathedral, Sicily 42

7 2 6 • INDEX

Santa Maria in Trastevere, Rome 56,
56-7

MORONI, GIOVANNI BATTISTA 621
Portrait of a Tailor 621, 621
Moses (Michelangelo Buonarroti) 497, 513,
513-14

Moses and the Brazen Serpent (Vincenzo
Danti) 661, 661

Moses Defending the Daughters of Jethro
(Rosso Fiorentino) 565, 565
Moses Striking Water from the Rock
(Tintoretto) 628-30, 629
Mystic Nativity (Sandro Botticelli) 345, 345
Mystical Marriage of St. Catherine (Paolo
Veronese) 634, 636

NANNI DI BANCO 193-6

Assumption of the Virgin , Florence
Cathedral 195, 195-6
Pour Crowned Martyrs 193-5, 194
Isaiah 476
Naples 384-5
NARDO DI CIONE
see Cione, Nardo di
Nativity

(Alesso Baldovinetti) 314, 314, 555
(Jacopo Bellini) 396, 396-7
(Gentile da Fabriano) 203, 205, 205-6
(Lorenzo Monaco) 148, 148
(Tintoretto) 630, 630
Nativity and Adoration of the Shepherds
(Domenico del Ghirlandaio) 352-3,
353

Nativity and Annunciation to the Shepherds
(Giotto di Bondone) 81, 81-2
Nativity and Prophets Isaiah and Ezekiel
(Duccio di Buoninsegna) 104, 105
naturalism 18, 73, 93, 95, 146, 193, 203,
224

Navicella , Chapter House, Santa Maria

Novella, Florence (Andrea da Firenze)
136, 143

Nef ( Ermonia Vivarini) 592, 592
Neo-Platonism 319, 337, 471
Neri di Fioravante 69
NEROCCIO DE’ LANDI 367-9
Portrait of a Woman 367-8, 368
Claudia Quinta 368, 368
Netherlands, art of 193, 293, 319, 324, 347,
352, 372, 376, 412, 414, 445
Niccolo da Tolentino (Andrea del Castagno)
278, 278

Niccolo da Uzzano 192
Nicholas IV, Pope 53

Nicholas V, Pope 239, 241, 246, 247, 295,
386, 491

NICOLA D’APULIA
see Pisano, Nicola

NICOLA DA URBINO, majolica bowl 409,
409

NICOLA PISANO
see Pisano, Nicola
Night , tomb of Giuliano de’ Medici
(Michelangelo Buonarroti) 547,

547-8, 549, 550, 608
Noli Me Tangere

(Lavinia Fontana) 683, 683
(Giotto di Bondone) 77, 84
nudity in art 182, 250, 256, 321-2, 386,

428, 472, 477, 480, 499, 509,

510-11, 574, 594, 606

obelisks, Rome 691
Oderisi da Gubbio 73
Ognissanti Madonna (Giotto di Bondone)
86, 87, 88

Ognissanti refectory, Florence 350-1, 351
oil painting 28, 32-3

Old Man with a Young Boy (Domenico del
Ghirlandaio) 354, 354—5
Old Sacristy, San Lorenzo, Florence 160,
170, 170, 171

Olympian Theater, Vicenza (Andrea Palladio
with Vincenzo Scamozzi) 646, 646-7,
647

ORCAGNA (Andrea di Cione) 69, 138—42
Enthroned Christ with Madonna and
Saints 138, 138-9, 139
Orsanmichele, Florence, Tabernacle 139,
140, 141, 141-2
Birth of the Virgin 141, 141
Death and Assumption of the Virgin
141, 141-2

Orsanmichele, Florence 24, 181, 186,

186-7, 187, 189, 191, 193
Tabernacle 139, 140, 141, 141-2
Orvieto Cathedral 128-33, 129, 130 , 131,
132, 133, 521

San Brizio Chapel, frescoes 386, 387
iconography 386
Ospedale degli Innocenti (Filippo
Brunelleschi) 64, 168-9, 169
Ospedale Maggiore, Milan 433
ostrich eggs 290

Ovetari Chapel, Eremitani Church, Padua
397-9, 398, 399
Ovid 338, 356, 409, 535, 675

Pacioli, Fra Luca 332, 350
The Pact of Judas (Simone Martini, work-
shop of) 117, 118, 118
Padua 151

Arena Chapel, Padua 64, 72, 74-86, 75,
77, 78, 79, 80, 81,82, 83, 84, 85,
86

iconography 76

Equestrian Monument of Gattamelata
(Donatello) 257, 257-8, 258
Eremitani Church, Padua, Ovetari

Chapel frescoes 397-9, 398, 399
Sant’ Antonio (Santo)

Chapel of St. Anthony 616, 616
Chapel of St. Felix 151, 151-2, 152
high altar 258, 259
painting

fresco 30, 30-2
oils 28, 32-3
practice of 28-33
tempera 28-9, 28

Palazzo Bevilacqua, Verona (Michele
Sanmicheli) 639, 639-40
Palazzo Caprini, Rome (Donato Bramante)
496, 496, 584

Palazzo dei Conservatori, Rome 656-7, 658
Palazzo Ducale, Urbino 379-80, 380
Studiolo of Federico da Montefeltro
381, 381-2, 382

Palazzo Farnese, Rome (Antonio da Sangallo
the Younger and Michelangelo)

584-6, 584, 585, 653, 654
Palazzo Loredan (Palazzo

Vendramin-Calergi), Venice (Mauro
Codussi) 432, 432-3

Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne, Rome 586,

586

Palazzo Medici-Riccardi (Medici Palace),
Florence 174-8, 175, 176, 177, 178,
236,294,312,312-13
Palazzo Piccolomini, Pienza 247, 247
Palazzo Pitti with the Boboli Gardens
(Giuso Utens) 248
Palazzo Pitti, Florence 247-8, 248
courtyard 666, 666
Palazzo del Principe, Genoa 566, 566
Palazzo dei Priori (Palazzo Vecchio),
Florence 70, 70-1, 681
Chapel of Eleonora da Toledo 6~2, 672
Sala del Cinquecento 467
studiolo 677-81, 678, 679, 680 , 681
Palazzo Publico, Siena

Council Chamber 110, 110-11, 111
Sala della Pace 124, 125-7, 125, 126-7 ,
128

Palazzo Rucellai, Florence (Leonbattista

Alberti with Bernardo Rossellino) 18,
242-4, 243

Palazzo Sacchetti, Rome 673, 674
Palazzo Schifanoia, Ferrara

Sala dei Mesi frescoes 437-9, 438
Palazzo Strozzi, Florence 307-9, 308, 309
Palazzo del Te, Mantua 586-8, 587, 588
Palazzo Valle-Capranica, Rome 660, 660
Palazzo Vecchio (Palazzo dei Priori),
Florence 70, 70-1, 681
Chapel of Eleonora da Toledo 672, 672
Sala del Cinquecento 467
studiolo 677-81, 678, 679, 680, 681
PALLADIO, ANDREA (Andrea di Pietro)
643-7

The Antiquities of Rome 643
The Four Books on Architecture 643
Olympian Theater, Vicenza (with

Vincenzo Scamozzi) 646, 646-7,
647

San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice 645-6,
645, 646

Villa Almerico (Villa Rotonda/Villa
Capra), Vicenza 643, 643-4
Villa Barbaro, Maser 644, 644— 5
Pallas Expelling the Vices from the Garden
of Virtue (Andrea Mantegna) 410
PALMA GIOVANE 597, Pietd (with Titian)
612-13, 613
Pantheon, Rome 18, 18
PAOLO CALIARI
see Veronese, Paolo
PAOLO DI DONO
see Uccello, Paolo
PAOLO VENEZIANO 149

Coronation of the Virgin 149, 149-50
papacy 24, 42, 53, 359, 491 see also
Avignon papacy
Paradise (Tintoretto) 630, 637
Parler, Heinrich 155
Parma 617

Cathedral 575, 575, 576
Convent of San Paolo, fresco cycle 572,
572-3

San Giovanni Evangelista 574
PARMIGIANINO (Francesco Mazzola)
577-80

Cupid Carving His Bow 579, 579-80
Diogenes, design for print 580
Madonna of the Long Neck 578, 579
Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror 577,
577

Vision of St. Jerome 577-8, 578
Parnassus (Andrea Mantegna) 410, 410
Parte Guelfa 328
PASTI, MATTEO DE’ 241, 242

INDEX • 727

design for Malatesta Temple (medal)

240 , 241

Pastoral Concert (Giorgione or Titian) 595,
596

PASUCCIO, DONATO DI
see Bramante, Donato
patrons 25, 37, 409
Paul II, Pope 685

Paul III, Pope (Alessandro Farnese) 584— 5,
649, 652

Pope Paul III Farnese Directing the
Continuance of St. Peter's
(Giorgio Vasari) 676, 676-7
portrait by Titian 607, 607
Paul IV, Pope 534

Pauline Chapel, Vatican 652, 652-3, 653
Pavia 152

Pax Veneta (Paolo Veronese) 637, 637, 638
Pazzi Chapel. Santa Croce, Florence (Filippo
Brunelleschi) 158 , 174, 174
Pazzi Conspiracy 254, 297, 332

Commemorative Medal of the Pazzi

Conspiracy with the Portraits of
Lorenzo il Magnifico and
Giuliano de' Medici 297, 298
Pazzi family 174
peach stone carvings 570-1
Pearl Fishers (Alessandro Allori) 680, 680
Pellegrini, Margarita 640
Pellegrini Chapel, San Bernardino, Verona
640, 640-1

Penitent Magdalen (Donatello) 298-9, 299
PERE JOAN, PIETRO DA MILANO and
others, Triumphal Arch of King
Alfonso of Aragon, Castello
Aragonese, Naples 384 , 384-5
Perseus and Andromeda (Giorgio Vasari)
679, 679-80
Perseus and Medusa

(Benvenuto Cellini) 663, 663— 4
(Baldassare Peruzzi) 535, 536
perspective 325, 350

Alberti 163, 228, 248, 250, 285
Brunelleschi 161-3
Piero della Francesca 285, 293
Perspective Study (Paolo Uccello) 263
Perspective Study, with Section and Plan, of
St. Peter's (Baldassare Peruzzi) 493
Perugia 21, 369

PERUGINO (Pietro Vanucci) 332, 333,
369-73, 443, 480
Christ Giving the Keys to St. Peter ,

Sistine Chapel 334, 369, 369-72,
370

Crucifixion with the Virgin and Sts.
John, Jerome, and Mary
Magdalene 372, 373
Francesco delle Opere 372-3, 373
Plead of a Man with a Long Beard 38
Sistine Chapel frescoes 650
PERUZZI, BALDASSARE 683

Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne, Rome
586, 586

Perspective Study, with Section and
Plan, of St. Peter's 493
Villa Farnesina, Rome 534—41, 535
Sala delle Prospettive 538, 538
Sala di Galatea 534-5, 536
Perseus and Medusa 535, 536
Villa Madama 531,532
Peruzzi bank 137

Peruzzi Chapel, Santa Croce, Florence 88-9
Pesaro, Jacopo 603
Pescia, San Francesco 44—5, 45
PESELLINO, FRANCESCO (Francesco di
Stefano) 315-17

The Triumphs of Love, Chastity, and
Death 315-17, 316-17
Petrarch 274; The Triumphs 316-17
Petrucci, Pandolfo 359
PETRUS CHRISTOS 412

St. Jerome (with Jan van Eyck) 347
Philip II of Spain 592, 596, 608
Philosophy { School of Athens) (Raphael)

516, 517-20, 518 , 555
Philostratus 602
piano nobile 366

Piazza della Signoria, Florence, Fountain of
Neptune 665, 665

Piazza of Florence cathedral in 1 754, with
the Baptistery and Bell Tower
(Giuseppe Zocchi) 22, 22
piazzas 35

Piccolomini, Francesco 374
Piccolomini Library, Siena Cathedral 374,
374-5, 375
Pienza 247, 247, 359

Cathedral and Palazzo Piccolomini 247,
247

PIERINO DA VINCI 660

Cosimo I as Patron of Pisa 660-1, 661
PIERO DELLA FRANCESCA 278-93, 319,
332, 376, 380
Baptism of Christ 279, 280
Battista Sforza and Federico da
Montefeltro 290-2, 292
Flagellation of Christ 288-90, 289
Legend of the True Cross, San

Francesco, Arezzo 282 , 283-7
Annunciation 287, 288
Battle of Constantine and Maxentius
286, 286

Battle of Heraclius and Chosroes
286-7, 287

Discovery of the Wood of the True
Cross 284 , 284—5
iconography 281

Invention of the True Cross 285, 285
Meeting of Solomon and the Queen of
Sheba 284 , 284-5
Recognition of the True Cross 285 ,
285-6

Vision of Constantine 287, 288
Madonna and Child with Saints 290,

291

perspective 285, 293
Resurrection 280, 281 , 283
Triumph of Federico da Montefeltro and
Triumph of Battista Sforza 290-2,
293

View of an Ideal City (posssibly by
Luciano Laurana) 380, 380-1
PIERO DI COSIMO 356-7, 477, 558
Death of Procris 3 56,357
Fantasy Portrait of Simonetta Vespucci
as Cleopatra 356, 356
Hunting Scene 356-7, 357
PIERO DI GIOVANNI
see Lorenzo Monaco
Pieta 44

(Giovanni Bellini) 416-17, 417
(Agnolo Bronzino) 669, 669
(Carlo Crivelli) 425, 425
(Giovanni da Milano) 144, 145
(Michelangelo Buonarroti) (Florence)
658-9, 659

(Michelangelo Buonarroti) (Milan) 659,
659

(Michelangelo Buonarroti) (Vatican)
473—4, 474

(Titian with Palma Giovane) 612-13,
613

(Cosme Tura) 436, 436
Pietra e Legname, Arte di 24, 35, 139, 188
pietra forte 70
pietra serena 171, 174
Pietra, Count Clemente 57
PIETRO, ANDREA DI
see Palladio, Andrea
PIETRO, GUIDO DI
see Angelico, Fra

PIETRO DA MILANO, PERE JOAN and
others, Triumphal Arch of King
Alfonso of Aragon, Castello
Aragonese, Naples 384, 384-5
Pietro da Novellara, Fra 463
Pieve di Santa Maria, Arezzo 119, 119-21
PINADELLO, GIOVANNI, Sixtus V and
His Roman Building Projects 691, 691
PINTORICCHIO (Bernardino di Betto) 332,
374-6

The Allegory of Fortune, marble floor,
Siena Cathedral 375, 375-6
Piccolomini Library, Siena Cathedral
374, 374-5

Departure of Aeneas Silvius

Piccolomini for Basel (with
Raphael) 359, 375
iconography 375
PIOMBO, SEBASTIAN DEL
see Sebastian del Piombo
Pippo Spano (Andrea del Castagno) 274-5,
275

Pisa 21, 42, 45, 57

Baptistery pulpit 40, 57-9, 58, 59
Camposanto 134
painting in 42—4
Pisa, School of

Cross No. 15 42, 42-3
Cross No. 20 43, 43-1
PISANELLO, ANTONIO 389-93

Portrait Medal of Cecilia Gonzaga 392,
392

St. George and the Princess , Pellegrini
Chapel, Sant’ Anastasia, Verona
390, 391

Study of Hanged Men 390, 391
Study of the Head of a Horse 390, 391
Vision of St. Eustace 390, 392
PISANO, ANDREA 100
Art of Sculpture 24
Baptistery, Florence, South Doors 1 00,
101

Baptism of the Multitude 101, 101
Campanile, Florence Cathedral 68
Creation of Adam 100, 100-1
PISANO, GIOVANNI 59, 60
Madonna and Child 64, 64
Mary, Sister of Moses 62, 62-3
pulpit, Sant’ Andrea, Pistoia 62, 63-4
Massacre of the Innocents 63, 63
Sibyl 63, 63-4

Siena Cathedral facade 60, 61, 62-3
PISANO, NICOLA (Nicola d’Apulia) 57-62
pulpit, Pisa Baptistery 40, 57-9
Annunciation, Nativity, and

Annunciation to the Shepherds
58, 58

Adoration of the Magi 58, 58
Daniel 58, 59

pulpit, Siena Cathedral 59-60
Madonna and Child 60, 60
Pistoia, Sant’ Andrea pulpit 62, 63-4
Pitti, Luca 247

Pius II, Pope 232, 241, 247, 312, 359, 374
Pius III, Pope 374, 487
Pizzolo, Niccolo 397

plague 137, 139, 141, 236, 278, 295, 556, 612

728 • INDEX

Plan for the triangular rare-book room of
the Laurentian Library (Michelangelo)
552, 552

Plans and Perspective Views of Domed
Churches (Leonardo da Vinci) 448 ,
448-9

Plate with the Sinking of the Fleet of
Seleucus , from the Pucci Service
(Francesco Xanto Avelli da Rovigo)
541, 541

Platina (humanist) 376
Plato 519, 580
Platonic Academy 335
Plautilla, Sister 572
Pliny 193, 488, 621

Poggio a Caiano, Villa Medici 559-60, 560
Poliziano, Angelo 352
La giostra 337, 339
POLLAIUOLO, ANTONIO DEL 160,

320-6

Chapel of the Cardinal of Portugal
303-6, 304

Apollo and Daphne 324, 324
Battle of the Nudes 321 , 321-2
Dance of the Nudes 322, 322
Hercules and Antaeus 320 , 320-1
Hercules and the Hydra 320 , 320-1
Portrait of a Young Woman 324, 325
St. Sebastian (with Piero del Pollaiuolo)
322-4, 323

tomb of Pope Sixtus IV, 325, 326
POLLAIUOLO, PIERO DEL

Chapel of the Cardinal of Portugal 303,
304

St. Sebastian 323, 324
POLYDORUS see Hagesandros,

Athenodorus, and Polydorus
polyptychs 26

Ponte Santa Trinita, Florence 666 , 667
PONTORMO, JACOPO CARUCCI DA 31,
558-63

Descent from the Cross , Capponi

Chapel, Santa Felicita, Florence
560-1, 562

Joseph in Egypt 558-9, 559
Study for Deluge Fresco for San
Lorenzo 563, 564

Vertumnus and Pomona , Villa Medici,
Poggio a Caiano 559-60, 560
Visitation , Santissima Annunziata,
Florence 558, 558

Pope Leo X with Cardinals Giulio de’

Medici and Luigi de’ Rossi (Raphael)
526, 526

Pope Paul III Farnese (Titian) 607, 607
Pope Paul III Farnese Directing the

Continuance of St. Peter's (Giorgio
Vasari) 676, 676-7
Porcari, Stefano 295
PORDENONE (Giovanni Antonio de
Sacchis) 580-1

Crucifixion , fresco, Cremona Cathedral
580-1, 581
porta clausa 80
Portinari, Tommaso 347
Portinari altarpiece (Hugo van der Goes)

347, 347

portrait busts see portraiture
Portrait Medal of Cecilia Gonzaga (Antonio
Pisanello) 392, 392

Portrait Medal of Cosimo de ' Medici 161, 161
Portrait Medal of Isabella d’Este

(Giancristoforo Romano) 408, 408
Portrait of a Bearded Man (Self-Portrait?)
(Titian) 598 , 599

Portrait of a Lady with Flowers (Andrea del

Verrocchio) 328-9, 329
Portrait of a Man (Antonello da Messina)
414, 414

Portrait of a Man with a Medal of Cosimo
de ' Medici (Sandro Botticelli) 342, 342
Portrait of a Tailor (Giovanni Battista
Moroni) 621, 621

Portrait of a Woman (Neroccio de’ Landi)
367-8, 368

Portrait of a Woman as Lucretia (Lorenzo
Lotto) 614 , 614-15
Portrait of a Young Woman (Alesso
Baldovinetti) 313, 313-14
Portrait of a Young Woman (Antonio del
Pollaiuolo) 324, 325

Portrait of Ginevra de ' Benci (Leonardo da
Vinci) 451-2, 452, 464
Portrait of Grand Duke Cos/wo de’ Medici
(Benvenuto Cellini) 664, 664
Portrait of Paolo Morigia (Fede Galizia)

689, 689

Portrait of Piero de' Medici (Mino da
Fiesole) 261, 261

Portrait of Simonetta Vespucci as Cleopatra
(Piero di Cosimo) 356, 356
Portrait of Sultan Mehmet II the Conqueror
(Gentile Bellini) 411-12, 412
Portrait of the Artist's Three Sisters with
their Governess (Sofonsiba
Anguissola) 623, 623—4
Portrait of Young Man (Moretto) 620,

620-1

portraiture 44, 85, 112, 193, 376, 464, 615,
620-3, 691

busts 251, 306, 328, 664
medals 161, 241, 342, 392, 408
self-portraits 241, 251, 577, 622
of women 313, 324, 356, 451-2, 464,
466, 615-16, 622

Prato

Cathedral frescoes 235, 235-6, 236
Santa Maria delle Carceri 310, 311,
311-12
predellas 26

Presentation in the Temple

(Ambrogio Lorenzetti) 122, 123 , 124-5
(Gentile da Fabriano) 203
Primavera (Sandro Botticelli) 338-9, 339
prints and printmaking 36, 220, 221, 321-2,
462, 580

Procession of the Magi (Benozzo Gozzoli)

161

Procession of the Relic of the True Cross
(Gentile Bellini) 411, 411
PROPERZIA DE’ ROSSI 570-2
Chastity of Joseph 570-1, 571
portrait in Vasari’s Lives 570, 571
Prophet Isaiah (Michelangelo Buonarroti)

503, 504

Psyche Received on Olympus (Raphael) 538,
539

Ptolemaic World Map (Bernardus Sylvanus)
591,591

Ptolemy 519, 591
publishing 36, 591

in Venice 426-7, 427
Pucci, Antonio 352

Punishment ofKorah, Dathan, and Abiram
(Sandro Botticelli) 334, 334-5
Pythagoras 155, 169, 519

Quattrocento 41, 159^140
QUERCIA, JACOPO DELLA 181,

199-201, 359, 365, 472

Baptismal font, Siena 197, 198
Fonte Gaia, Siena 199, 199-200, 200
Rea Silvia/Public Charity 200, 200
San Petronio, Bologna, main portal
200 - 1 , 201

Creation of Adam 200, 201
Expulsion 200, 201

RAIMONDI, MARCANT ONIO 522, 530,
538,571

Judgment of Paris , engraving after
Raphael 530-1, 531
Raising of Lazarus

(Giotto di Bondone) 77, 82, 82-3
(Sebastiano del Piombo) 532-3, 533,
534

Raising of the Son of Theophilus and the
Enthronement of St. Peter (Masaccio
with Filippino Lippi) 215, 215
Rangone, Tommaso 627, 628
Rape ofEuropa (Titian) 610 , 610-11
RAPHAEL (Raffaello Santi) 25, 365, 369,
372, 373, 420, 443, 463, 480-4, 492,
515-41, 687
Angelo Doni 484, 484
Baldassare Castiglione 525, 525
Dona Velata 524— 5, 525
Fighting Men, study for relief sculpture
in School of Athens 520 > 520
Maddalena Strozzi Doni 484, 484
Madonna of the Meadows 482-3, 483
Marriage of the Virgin 480, 481
Philosophy ( School of Athens) 516,

5 17-20, 518, 555

Pope Leo X with Cardinals Giulio de'
Medici and Luigi de' Rossi 526,
526

St. George and the Dragon 481-2, 482
Sistine Madonna 523-4, 524
Small Cowper Madonna 483, 483
Stanze, Vatican 515-23
Disputa (Disputation over the

Sacraments) 515-17, 517, 519
Expulsion of Attila 521, 523
Expulsion of Heliodorus 522, 522
Faith , Hope, and Charity 517 , 520
Fortitude, Prudence, and Temperance
517, 520
iconography 515

Liberation of St. Peter from Prison
514, 521, 523

Mass of Bolsena 521-3, 522
Philosophy (School of Athens) 516,
517-20, 518,555

Studies of the Madonna and Child 482,
482

tapestries for the Sistine Chapel 527-30
Conversion of St. Paul 528, 529
Healing of the Lame Man (cartoon)

527- 8, 528

St. Paul Preaching at Athens (cartoon)

528- 30, 530

Transfiguration of Christ and Healing of
the Boy Possessed by Demons
532, 533, 533-4
Villa Farnesina, Rome
Galatea, Sala di Galatea 535-6, 536,
555

Loggia of Psyche 538, 539
Cupid Pointing Out Psyche to the
Three Graces (with Giulio
Romano) 538, 539, 541
Psyche Received on Olympus 538,
539

INDEX * 7 2 9

Villa Madama 531, 532
RAVERTI, MATTEO, GIOVANNI AND
BARTOLOMEO BON, ZUAN DA
FRANZA, and others, Ca d’Oro,
Venice 393, 393

Rea Silvia/Public Charity (Jacopo della
Quercia) 200, 200
realism 18

Rebellious Slave (Michelangelo Buonarroti)
514, 514

Recognition of the True Cross (Piero della
Francesca) 285, 28 5-6
refectories 26
Reims Cathedral 92

Reliquary of the Santo Corporale, Orvieto
Cathedral, Siena (Ugolino di Verio)
130, 130
Resurrection

(Luca della Robbia) 252, 253, 254
(Michelangelo Buonarroti) 548, 549
(Piero della Francesca) 280, 281, 283
Resurrection of the Dead (Luca Signorelli)

38 6,387

Resurrection of the Notary’s Son (Domenico
del Ghirlandaio) 318, 351
Resurrection , Crucifixion, Entombment
(sinopia) (Andrea del Castagno) 31
Riccardi family 175
Riccobaldo (chronicler) 93^4
Ridolfi, Carlo 624, 632-3
rilievo schiacciato 193
Rimini 359

Malatesta Temple 240, 241, 241-2
Risen Christ (Vecchietta) 364— 5, 365
RIZZO, ANTONIO
Adam 428, 428
Eve 428, 429
Robbia, Andrea della 252
ROBBIA, LUCA DELLA 178, 251^1, 303,
304,319

Cantoria 251, 252
Singing Boys 251

Florence Cathedral doors 254, 297
Resurrection 252, 253, 254
Robert of Anjou, King of Naples 111-12
ROBERTI, ERCOLE DE’
see Ercole de’ Roberti
Robusti, Marietta 626
Roger, King of Sicily 41
Rohan, Pierre de 476
Romanesque art 42-3, 45
Romanino of Brescia 580
ROMANO, GIANCRISTOFORO
see Giancristoforo Romano
ROMANO, GIULIO
see Giulio Romano

Rome 22-3, 487-8, 544, 546, 639, 691
Campidoglio 656, 657
Palazzo dei Conservatori 656-7, 658
Colosseum 18, 18
II Gesu 685-7, 685, 686, 687
Golden House of the Emperor Nero 19,
349, 374, 488
Jubilee, 1600 691
map 12

Medici Villa see Villa Madama below
obelisks 691

Palazzo Caprini 496, 496, 584
Palazzo dei Conservatori 656-7, 658
Palazzo Farnese 584— 6, 584, 585, 653,
654

Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne 586, 586
Palazzo Sacchetti 673, 674
Palazzo Valle-Capranica 660, 660
Pantheon 18, 18
Sack of (1527) 546

Santi Apostoli 377

Santa Cecilia in Trastevere 56-7, 56—7
Santa Maria Maggiore 53, 53
Santa Maria in Trastevere 56, 56-7
St. Paul’s Outside the Walls 55
San Pietro in Montorio 513, 514
Borgherini Chapel 540, 541
Tempietto 490, 490-1
San Pietro in Vincoli 377
Vatican see Vatican
Villa Farnesina 534-41, 535
bedroom 536-8, 537
Loggia of Psyche 538, 539, 541
Sala delie Prospettive 538, 538
Sala di Galatea 534-6, 536, 537
Villa Madama (formerly Medici Villa)
531,532

Rome, ancient: art and architecture 18-19,
34-5, 53, 58, 59, 64, 71, 73, 95, 144,
161, 165, 175, 182-3, 183, 242, 246,
257, 306, 309, 385, 488, 616, 643
Romuald, St. 237
Rosselli, Cosimo 332

ROSSELLINO, ANTONIO, Chapel of the
Cardinal of Portugal, San Miniato,
Florence 303-6, 304, 305, 321
ROSSELLINO, BERNARDO 359, 491
Chapel of the Cardinal of Portugal 303,
304, 305

Palazzo Rucellai, Florence (?) 242-4,

243

Pienza 247, 247

Cathedral and Palazzo Piccolomini
247, 247

tomb of Lionardo Bruni, Santa Croce,
Florence 260, 261, 302
ROSSELLINO, GIOVANNI, Chapel of the
Cardinal of Portugal 303-4, 304
Rossi, Cardinal Luigi de’, portrait by
Raphael 526, 526
ROSSI, PROPERZIA DE’
see Properzia de’ Rossi
ROSSO FIORENTINO (Giovanni Battista
di Jacopo) 563-5

Assumption of the Virgin, Santissima
Annunziata, Florence 563, 563
Descent from the Cross 564, 565
Moses Defending the Daughters of
Jethro 565, 565

Rovere, Cardinal Girolamo Basso della 377
Rovere, Cardinal Giuliano della {see Julius
II, Pope

Rovere, Francesco Maria della, Duke of
Urbino 552-3

Rovere, Marco Vigerio della 498, 499, 504,
510

ROVIGO, FRANCESCO XANTO AVELLI
DA, Plate with the Sinking of the Fleet
of Seleucus, from the Pucci Service
541, 541

RUBENS, PETER PAUL 523, 580

copy of Battle of Anghiari (Leonardo da
Vinci) 467, 467
Rucellai, Bernardo 296
Rucellai, Giovanni 239, 242, 244
Rucellai Madonna (Duccio di Buoninsegna)
103, 103—4

Ruins of the Ancient Roman Theater of
Marcellus, Rome (Giuliano da
Sangallo) 309, 309
Ruskin, John 78, 174, 625

Sacred and Profane Love (Titian) 599, 601,
601-2

Sacrifice of Isaac

(Filippo Brunelleschi) 181-3, 182
(Lorenzo Ghiberti) 182-2, 182
sacristies 26

Sant’Agostino, Rome 690, 691
Sant’ Andrea, Mantua 245, 245-6, 246
Santissima Annunziata, Florence 314, 314,
350, 463, 558, 558, 563, 563
St. Anthony of Padua and the Miracle of the
Miser’s Heart (Tullio Lombardo) 616,
616

St. Anthony of Padua Healing the Wrathful
Son (Donatello) 258, 259
Sant’Antonio (Santo), Padua

Chapel of St. Anthony 616, 616
Chapel of St. Felix 151, 151-2, 152
high altar 258, 259
Sant’Apollonia, Florence 262
Santi Apostoli, Rome 377
San Bernardino, Verona, Pellegrini Chapel
640, 640-1

Santa Casa, Loreto, Basilica 378, 378
Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, Rome 56-7,

56-7

Santa Croce, Florence 64, 67, 67-8, 95, 145,
255, 302, 302, 303
Bardi Chapel 88, 88-91, 89, 90, 91
Baroncelli Chapel 97, 97-8, 98
Pazzi Chapel 158, 174, 174
Peruzzi Chapel 88-9
Refectory 98-9, 99

Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, Rome 691
San Felice, Florence 233
Santa Felicita, Florence, Capponi Chapel
560-1, 561, 562

San Francesco, Arezzo 282, 283-7, 284,

285, 286, 287, 288
iconography 283

San Francesco, Assisi, Lower Church, Assisi

120 , 121 , 121-2

St. Martin Chapel 112 ,113,114
San Francesco, Assisi, Upper Church 51-2,
52, 54, 54, 55, 93-5, 94
St. Francis in Ecstasy (Giovanni Bellini) 418,
420, 420

St. Francis in Ecstasy , Sansepolcro altarpiece
(Sassetta) 360, 361

St. Francis Praying Before the Crucifix at
San Damiano (Master of the St.
Francis Cycle) 94, 94

St. Francis Renouncing His Worldly Goods
(Master of the St. Francis Cycle) 94,

St. Francis Undergoing the Test by Fire

Before the Sultan of Egypt (Giotto di
Bondone) 89, 89

St. Francis with Scenes from his Life

(Bonaventura Berlinghieri) 44-5, 45
St. George (Donatello) 191, 191-2
St. George and the Dragon
(Donatello) 192, 192-3
(Raphael) 481-2, 482
St. George and the Princess (Antonio
Pisanello) 390, 391

San Gimignano, Collegiata 117, 117-18,

118

San Giobbe altarpiece, Madonna and Child
with Saints (Giovanni Bellini) 417-18,
418

San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice 630-2, 631,
645-6, 645, 646

Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Venice 150-1
St. James before Herod Agrippa (Andrea
Mantegna) 397, 398
St. James Led to Execution (Andrea
Mantegna) 398-9, 399

730 • INDEX

St. Jerome

(Jan van Eyck and Petrus Christus) 347
(Alessandro Vittoria) 647, 647
St. Jerome in His Study (AntoneIJo da
Messina) 412, 412
St. John the Baptist

(Ercole de’ Roberti) 439, 439
(Lorenzo Ghiberti) 186 , 186-8, 188
St. John the Baptist in the Desert (Domenico
Veneziano) 270-1, 271
San Lorenzo, Florence

Donatello reliefs 299-300, 301
facade 544 , 544-5, 545
Laurentian Library 550-2
Entrance Hall 550-1, 551
Flan for the triangular rare-book
room 552, 552
Reading Room 551-2, 552
Medici Chapel 170 , 545-50, 546, 547,
549, 550

Old Sacristy 160, 170, 170, 171
St. Louis of Toulouse Crowing Robert of
Anjou , King of Naples and Scenes
from the Life of St. Louis of Toulouse
(Simone Martini) 111-12, 112
St Lucy altarpiece 268-70, 269
San Marco altarpiece, Florence (Fra
Angelico)

Madonna and Saints 226-8, 227
The Miracle of the Deacon Justinian
228, 228

San Marco monastery, Florence 160, 229,
229, 298, 342
library 179, 179

Santa Maria degli Angeli, Florence 146, 173,
173-4, 274

Santa Maria del Calcinaio, Cortona 366-7,
367

Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence,

Brancacci Chapel 208-15, 210, 211,
212, 213, 214, 215, 232, 233, 347
iconography 209

Santa Maria della Consolazione, Todi,
Umbria 493-4, 494

Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, Venice 150,
150-1, 418, 419, 599, 600, 603^1,
604, 612

Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan (Donato
Bramante) 490, 490

Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome 53, 53, 691
Santa Maria Novella, Florence 64, 66, 66-7,
144, 218, 219, 220, 244, 244-5
Cappella Maggiore 353-5, 354, 470
Chapter House (Spanish Chapel) 136,
143, 143 — 4

Chiostro Verde 264, 264-5
Strozzi Chapel 138-9, 138 , 139, 142,

348 , 349-50

Santa Maria presso San Satiro, Milan

(Donato Bramante) 489, 489-90, 490
Santa Maria della Scala, Siena 362, 363,

364, 365

Santa Maria in Trastevere, Rome 56, 56-7
St. Mark (Donatello) 189-91, 190
St Mark Freeing a Christian Slave
(Tintoretto) 626, 626-7
St. Matthew (Michelangelo Buonarroti)
477-8, 478

San Miniato, Florence, Chapel of the

Cardinal of Portugal 303-6, 304, 305,
315,315, 321,324, 333
St. Paul’s Outside the Walls, Rome 55
St. Paul Preaching at Athens (cartoon)
(Raphael) 528-30, 530
Si. Peter Baptizing the Neophytes
(Masaccio) 203, 212

St. Peter Healing with His Shadow
(Masaccio) 214, 214
St Peter’s, Vatican, Rome 18, 19, 247,

491-3, 492, 493, 526, 653-6, 654,
655, 656, 684, 691

San Petronio, Bologna, main portal 200-1,
201

San Pietro in Montorio, Rome 513, 514
Borgherini Chapel 540, 541
Tempietto 490, 490-1
San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome 377
Si. Sebastian

(Antonella da Messina) 414-5, 415
(Antonio del Pollaiuolo with Piero del
Pollaiuolo) 322—4, 323
San Sebastiano, Venice 632, 633
Santo Spirito, Florence 170-3, 172, 173,

472, 472

St. Sylvester Sealing the Dragon’s Mouth and
Resuscitating Two Pagan Magicians
(Maso di Banco) 95, 95-6
Santa Trinita, Florence 49

Sassetti Chapel 318, 351-3, 352, 353
San Zaccaria altarpiece. Enthroned
Madonna with Saints (Giovanni
Bellini) 388, 420, 421
San Zaccaria facade, Venice 430-1, 431
Saltcellar of King Francis I of France
(Benvenuto Cellini) 662, 662-3
SALVIATI, FRANCESCO 477, 639, 673
Palazzo Sacchetti, Rome, frescoes 673,
674

SANGALLO, ANTONIO DA, THE ELDER
309, 581-4

Madonna di San Biagio, Montepulciano
542, 544, 582, 582, 583
Palazzo Tarugi 582—4, 553
Santa Maria del Calcinaio, Cortona
(with Francesco di Giorgio) 582
SANGALLO, ANTONIO DA, THE

YOUNGER 309, 477, 584-6, 639,

676

Palazzo Farnese, Rome (with

Michelangelo) 584-6, 584, 585,
653, 654

St. Peter’s 654, 654

SANGALLO, ARISTOTILE DA, Battle of
Cascina (copy after Michelangelo) 479
SANGALLO, GIULIANO DA 307, 309-12,
378, 477, 488

Ruins of the Ancient Roman Theater of
Marcellus , Rome 309, 309
San Lorenzo, Florence, design for facade
544, 544, 582

Santa Maria delle Carceri, Prato 310,
311, 311-12

Villa Medici, Poggio a Caiano 309-11,
310

SANMICHELI, MICHELE 639-41

Palazzo Bevilacqua, Verona 639, 639-40
Pellegrini Chapel, San Bernardino,

Verona 640, 640-1
Sansepolcro altarpiece see Sassetta
SANSOVINO, JACOPO (Jacopo Tatti) 555,
641-2, 666

Library of San Marco, Venice 641,

641-2

Loggetta, Venice 642, 642
Zecca, Venice 641 , 642
Santi, Giovanni 376
Sappho 520

Sarcophagus of Bemabo Visconti (Bonino da
Campione, Workshop of) 152
sarcophagus with Story of Phaedra and
Hippolytus (ancient Rome) 58, 59
SASSETTA (Stefano di Giovanni) 361-2

Marriage of St. Francis to Lady Poverty,
Sansepolcro altarpiece 361, 361-2
St. Francis in Ecstasy, Sansepolcro altar-
piece 360, 361
Sassetti, Francesco 351, 352
Sassetti, Nora Corsi 351
SAVOLDO, GIROLAMO 619

Tobias and the Angel 619, 619-20
Savonarola, Girolamo 161, 298, 342, 344,
345, 472

Sermon on the Art of Dying Well 342,
343

Scala family 156, 257
SCAMOZZI, VINCENZO

Olympian Theater, Vicenza (with
Andrea Palladio) 647, 647
San Giorgio Maggiore, facade 645, 646
Scenes from Genesis (Lorenzo Maitani) 130,
131 , 132, 132

SCHEGGIA (Giovanni Di Ser Giovanni),
birth salver ( Desco da Parto) of
Lorenzo de’ Medici, with the Triumph
of Fame 291,297

School of Athens (Philosophy ) (Raphael)
516, 517-20, 518, 555
Scrovegni, Enrico 74-5, 85, 85
sculpture and sculptors 19-20, 24-5
models/sketches 27
practice of 24, 33-4

Scuola di San Rocco, Venice 624, 628, 628
Sala dell’Albergo 628, 629
Sala Grande 628-30, 629, 630
Scuola Grande di San Marco, Venice 431,
431

scuole, Venetian 411

SEBASTIANO DEL PIOMBO 524, 531, 534
Flagellation, Borgherini Chapel, San
Pietro in Montorio, Rome 540,

541

Raising of Lazarus 532-3, 533, 534
Self-Portrait

(Leonbattista Alberti) 240, 241
(Sofonsiba Anguissola) 622, 622-3
(Lorenzo Ghiberti) 251, 251
Self-Portrait at the Spinet (Lavinia Fontana ►
682-3, 683

Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror
(Parmigianino) 577, 577
self-portraits see portraiture
Separation of Light from Darkness
(Michelangelo Buonarroti) 509,

509-10

Serlio, Sebastiano 683
SETTIGNANO, DESIDERIO DA
see Desiderio da Settignano
Sforza, Battista 290

bust (Francesco Laurana) 379, 379
portrait (Piero della Francesca) 290-2,
291,292

Sforza, Francesco 290, 433
Sforza, Galeazzo Maria 412, 433
Sforza, Ludovico il Moro 433, 444, 455,

490, 617

Sforza family 152, 389

Sforzinda, plan of (Antonio Filarete) 434,

434

sfumato 464

Sibyl (Giovanni Pisano) 63, 63—4
Sicily, Cefalu Cathedral, Christ Pantocrator,
the Virgin Mary, Angels, Saints, and
Prophets (mosaic) 42
Siena 21, 22, 23, 41, 137, 359, 361
Baptismal font 197-8, 198, 359
Cathedral

facade 60, 61, 62-3

Piccolomini Library 374, 374-5, 375

INDEX * 73 1

pulpit 59-60, 60
Fonte Gaia 199 , 199-200, 200
Hospital of Santa Maria della Scala 362,
363, 364
map IS

Palazzo Publico

Council Chamber 110, 110-11, 111
Sala della Pace 124, 125-7, 125,

126-7 , 128

San Niccolo del Carmine 568, 568
see also Sienese art
Sienese art 103-33, 359-69
Sigismund, Emperor 359
SIGNORELLI, LUCA 333, 385-7
Court of Pan 385 , 385-6
San Brizio Chapel, Orvieto Cathedral,
frescoes 386
iconography 386

Damned Consigned to Hell 386, 387
Resurrection of the Dead 386, 387
SIMONE MARTINI 110-18

Annunciation with Two Saints 114, 115
The Blessed Agostino Novello and Four
of his Miracles 116, 11 6-1 7
Maestd 110, 110-11, 111
St. Louis of Toulouse Crowing Robert
of Anjou , King of Naples and
Scenes from the Life of St. Louis
of Toulouse 111-12, 112
St. Martin Chapel, San Francesco,

Assisi, frescoes 112, 113, 114
Dream of St. Martin 114, 114
Way to Calvary 116, 117
SIMONE MARTINI, WORKSHOP OF,
Collegiate Church, San Gimignano
The Betrayal, 117,118,118
The Pact of Judas 117, 118, 118
Singing Boys (Luca della Robbia) 251
sinopie 30, 32

Sir John Hawkwood, Florence Cathedral
(Paolo Uccello) 257, 264, 264, 278
Sistine Chapel, Vatican, Rome

frescoes 30, 332—4, 369, 369-72, 370,
374,385, 486, 498-512
Last Judgment (Michelangelo

Buonarroti) 32, 324, 334, 371,
499, 648, 649-52, 650, 651,
661, 671

Sistine Madonna (Raphael) 523-4, 524
Sixtus IV, Pope 297, 325, 332, 333, 369,
371, 376-7, 378, 385, 455, 487, 488,
498, 499, 516

tomb (Antonio del Pollaiuolo) 325, 326
Sixtus IV della Rovere , his Nephews, and
Platina , his Librarian (Melozzo da
Forli) 376, 376-7
Sixtus V, Pope 691

Sixtus V and His Roman Building Projects
(Giovanni Pinadello) 691, 691
Sketches for the Last Supper ; Architectural
and Geometric Sketches (Leonardo da
Vinci) 457, 458

Sleeping Venus (Giorgione, finished by
Titian) 594-5, 595

Small Cowper Madonna (Raphael) 483, 483
Socrates 519

Soderini, Piero 467, 477, 509, 543
SODOMA 515, 517, 519, 534

Marriage of Alexander and Roxana,

bedroom of Villa Farnesina, Rome
536-8, 537

Spanish Chapel (Chapter House), Santa
Maria Novella, Florence 136, 143,
143—4

Spano, Pippo 207

Speculum Romanae magnificentiae (Antonio

Lafreri) 18, 18
spolvero 27, 32
sprezzatura 464, 466
Squarcione, Francesco 397
stained glass 144

Stanza d’Eliodora, Vatican, Rome 520-3,
521, 522

Stanza della Segnatura, Vatican, Rome
515-20, 516, 517, 518, 519
iconography 515

Star-of Bethlehem and Other Plants
(Leonardo da Vinci) 445, 445
stigmata 44

Stigmatization of St. Catherine (Domenico
Beccafumi) 567, 567-8
Stigmatization of St. Francis (Giotto di
Bondone) 90-1, 91
storie 27, 78

Storm Breaking over a Valley (Leonardo da
Vinci) 444, 445

Stornaloco, Gabriele, Milan Cathedral plan
154, 155

Strada, Jacopo, portrait by Titian 611,
611-12

Strozzi, Filippo 307, 309, 349
Strozzi, Maddalena

see Doni, Maddalena Strozzi
Strozzi, Palla 203, 224
Strozzi, Tommaso 138, 139
Strozzi altarpiece ( Adoration of the Magi)
(Gentile da Fabriano) 203-6, 204, 224
Flight into Egypt 203, 206, 206
Nativity 203, 205, 205-6
Presentation in the Temple 203
Strozzi Chapel, Santa Maria Novella,

Florence 138-9, 138, 139, 142, 348,
349-50

Strozzi family 148

Studies of a Left Leg, Showing Bones and
Tendons (Leonardo da Vinci) 447, 448
Studies of the Madonna and Child (Raphael)
482, 482

Studies of Water Movements (Leonardo da
Vinci) 449, 449

Studiolo of Federico da Montefeltro, Palazzo
Ducale, Urbino (Giuliano da Maiano)
381, 381-2, 382

Study for a Bowman in the Capture of Zara
(Tintoretto) 625, 625
Study for Deluge Fresco for San Lorenzo
(Jacopo Carucci da Pontormo) 563,
564

Study of Composition of Last Supper
(Leonardo da Vinci) 457, 459
Study of Drapery for a Seated Figure
(Leonardo da Vinci) 450, 451
Study of Hanged Men (Antonio Pisanello)
390, 391

Study of the Head of a Horse (Antonio
Pisanello) 390, 391
Study of the Head of the Angel for

Madonna of the Rocks (Leonardo da
Vinci) 455, 457

SYLVANUS, BERNARDUS, Ptolemaic
World Map 591, 591

Tabernacle, Orsanmichele, Florence 139,
140, 141, 141-2
tagliapietra 33
Talenti, Fra Jacapo 69
Talenti, Francesco, Florence Cathedral 68,
69

TALENTI, SIMONE 69

Loggia della Signoria, Florence 71

tapestries 155-6, 313

Tarquinia Madonna (Fra Filippo Lippi) 232,
232

TATTI, JACOPO

see Sansovino, Jacopo
tempera painting 28-9, 28
Tempestuous Landscape with the Soldier
and the Gypsy (Giorgione) 593, 594
Tempietto, San Pietro in Montorio, Rome
(Donato Bramante) 490, 490-1
Temptation (Masolino) 213, 213-14
Temptation of Christ on the Mountain
(Duccio di Buoninsegna) 108, 108
terra verde 29
terra-cotta 440
Theatine Order 574
Thomas Aquinas, St. 138, 139
The Three Graces (Correggio) 572 , 573
The Three Living and the Three Dead, The
Triumph of Death, The Last
Judgment, and Hell (Master of the
Triumph of Death) 134-5, 134-5
TINTORETTO (Jacopo Robusti) 512, 591,
624-32

Last Supper, San Giorgio Maggiore,
Venice 630-2, 631
Paradise 630, 637

St Mark Freeing a Christian Slave 626,

626- 7

Scuola di San Rocco, Venice 624, 628,
628

Crucifixion , Sala dell’Albergo 628,

629

Moses Striking Water from the Rock,
Sala Grande 628-30, 629
Nativity, Sala Grande 630, 630
Study for a Bowman in the Capture of
Zara 625, 625

Transport of the Body of St. Mark 627,

627- 8

TITIAN (Tiziano Vecellio) 25, 365, 420,

591, 596-613, 624-5, 634, 639
Assumption of the Virgin, Santa Maria
Gloriosa dei Frari, Venice 596-7,
599, 600, 601

Bacchanal of the Andrians 602, 602-3
Bacchus and Ariadne 602-3, 603
Concert Champetre (Pastoral Concert)
(possibly by Giorgione) 595, 596
Crowning with Thorns 612, 612
Danae 608, 608
David and Goliath 607, 607
Entombment 604-5, 605
Gypsy Madonna (Madonna and Child)
597, 597

Jacopo Strada 611, 611-12
Madonna of the Pesaro Family, Santa
Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, Venice
603-4, 604, 691
Man with the Glove 605, 605
Martyrdom of St. Lawrence, Chiesa dei
Gesuiti, Venice 608-10, 609
Pietd (with Palma Giovane) 612-13, 613
Pope Paul III Farnese 607, 607
Portrait of a Bearded Man ( Self-
Portrait ?) 598, 599
Rape of Eur op a 610, 610-11
Sacred and Profane Love 599, 601,
601-2

Sleeping Venus (with Giorgione) 594—5,
595

Venus of Urbino 606, 606-7
Tito, Santi di 680

Tobias and the Angel (Girolamo Savoldo)
619, 619-20

Todi, Santa Maria della Consolazione

732 • INDEX

493-4, 494

Tomb of Lionardo Bruni, Santa Croce,

Florence (Bernardo Rossellino) 260,
261, 302

Tomb for Julius II (Michelangelo

Buonarroti) 468, 496-7, 497, 512-15,
513, 552^1, 553, 554, 652, 660-1
Tomb of Carlo Marsuppini, Santa Croce,
Florence (Desiderio da Settignano)
302-3, 302, 303

Tomb of Doge Pietro Mocenigo (Pietro
Lombardo with Antonio and Tullio
Lombardo) 428, 429
Tomb of Pope Sixtus IV (Antonio del
Pollaiuolo) 325, 326

Tombs of Giuliano and Lorenzo de’ Medici,
Medici Chapel, San Lorenzo, Florence
(Michelangelo Buonarroti) 545-50,
546, 547, 549, 550
Dawn 547, 547-8, 550, 550, 665
Day 471,547, 547-8, 549
Dusk 547, 547-8, 549
Night 547, 547-8, 549, 550, 608
tondi 234, 297
TORI, AGNOLO

see Bronzino, Agnolo
Tornabuoni, Giovanni 353
Tornabuoni, Lucrezia 236, 297, 316
Tornabuoni, Ludovica 355
Torrigiani, Pietro 470
TORRITI, JACOPO, Coronation of the

Virgin, Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome
53, 53-4

Toscanelli, Paolo del Pozzo 292
Transfiguration of Christ and Healing of the
Boy Possessed by Demons (Raphael)
532, 533, 533^1

Transport of the Body of St. Mark
(Tintoretto) 627, 627-8
Traversari, Ambrogio 173
Treatise on Painting (Leonardo da Vinci)

446

Trecento 41

in Siena 103-33
sculpture 100-1
in Florence 73-101

Trent: Castello del Buonconsiglio, Eagle’s
Tower 155, 155-6

Tribute Money (Masaccio) 210-12 ,211
Trinity with Mary, John the Evangelist, and
Two Donors , Santa Maria Novella,
Florence (Masaccio) 218, 219, 220*

691

triptychs 26

Trissino, Giangiorgio 643
Triumph of David (Andrea del Castagno)
275-6, 276

Triumph of Fame from the birth salver
( Desco da Parto) of Lorenzo de’

Medici (Scheggia) 297, 297
Triumph of Federico da Montefeltro and

Triumph of Battista Sforza (Piero della
Francesca) 290-2, 293

Triumph of Heraclius over Chosroes, Legend
of the True Cross (Santa Croce,
Florence) (Agnolo Gaddi) 145, 146
Triumph of Mordecai (Paolo Veronese) 632,
633

Triumph of the Church, Chapter House,

Santa Maria Novella, Florence
(Andrea da Firenze) 136, 143, 143—4
Triumphal Arch of King Alfonso of Aragon,
Castello Aragonese, Naples 384,

384-5

The Triumphs of Love, Chastity, and Death
(Francesco Pesellino) 315-17, 316-17

Trivulzio, Giangiacomo 468
trompe Poeil 427
TURA, COSME 434-7

Enthroned Madonna and Child with
Angels, from the Roverella altar-
piece 434-6, 435

Pieta, from the Roverella altarpiece 436,
436

Turin-Milan Hours (Jan van Eyck) 193
Two Sheets of Battle Studies (Leonardo da
Vinci) 468, 468

UCCELLO, PAOLO (Paolo di Dono) 160,
176, 263-6, 319, 389
Battle of San Romano 265-6, 266, 267,
278, 316

Deluge , Chiostro Verde, Santa Maria
Novella, Florence 264, 264-5
Perspective Study 263
Sir John Hawkwood, Florence Cathedral
257, 264, 264, 278
Uffizi, Florence 49, 677, 677
UDINE, GIOVANNI DA
see Giovanni da Udine
UGO DA CARPI, Diogenes, after
Parmigianino 580, 580
UGOLINO DI VERIO, Reliquary of the
Santo Corporale, Orvieto Cathedral,
Siena 130, 130
ultramarine 29, 651-2
Umbria 359
Urban IV, Pope 128
Urban V, Pope 143
Urbino 288, 359, 376, 378-81

Palazzo Ducale, Urbino 379-80, 380
Studiolo of Federico da Montefeltro
381, 381-2 ,382
URBINO, NICOLA DA
see Nicola da Urbino
UTENS, GIUSO, Palazzo Pitti with the
Boboli Gardens 248

VAGA, PERINO DEL (Piero Bonaccorsi)
526, 565-7

Adoration of the Infant Jesus 565-6,
566

Fall of the Giants, Palazzo del Principe,
Genoa 566, 566-7
Vaiai e Pellicciai, Arte dei 24
VAN EYCK, JAN
see Eyck, Jan van
VANNUCI, PIETRO
see Perugino

VANVITELLI, LUIGI, model for St. Peter’s
dome (with Michelangelo and
Giacomo della Porta) 656, 656
Varchi, Benedetto 470
varnish 29

VASARI, GIORGIO 25, 27, 32, 37, 41, 49,
73, 104, 161, 164, 174, 232, 242,
255, 263-4, 268, 271, 296, 333, 345,
356, 369, 448, 457, 464, 467, 469,
477, 479, 496-7, 515, 548, 555, 558,
559, 561, 565, 577, 585, 592, 596,
607, 608, 611, 622, 660, 665, 676-9,
682, 684

Lives of the Best Architects, Painters,
and Sculptors ... 37, 376, 570-2,
677

Pope Paul III Farnese Directing the
Continuance of St. Peter’s 676,
676-7

Portrait of Properzia de ’ Rossi 570, 571
Studiolo, Palazzo dei Priori, Florence
677, 678

Perseus and Andromeda 679, 679-80
Uffizi, Florence 677, 677
Vatican 246

Belvedere 488, 494-5, 495
Library 376

Pauline Chapel 652, 652-3, 653
Raphael

Stanza d’Eliodora 520-3, 52 i, 522
Stanza della Segnatura 515-20. 516.
517, 518, 519
iconography 515

St Peter’s 18, 19, 247, 491-3, 491, 493.
526, 653-6, 654, 655, 656, 684.
691

VECCHIETTA (Lorenzo di Pietro) 364—5
Risen Christ 364-5, 365
vellum 27

Venetian art 149-50, 389
fabrics 426, 427
glass 592

Gothic and Renaissance 389^140
High and Late Renaissance 591-647
publishing 426-7, 427
see also individual names of artists
VENEZIANO, DOMENICO
see Domenico Veneziano
VENEZIANO, PAOLO
see Paolo Veneziano

Venice 21, 22, 23, 149, 389, 591-2, 616,
617

Arsenale Gateway 430, 430
Ca d’Oro 393, 393
Doge’s Palace, Venice 630
Hall of the Great Council 637, 637
Library of San Marco 641, 641-2
map 14

Palazzo Loredan (Palazzo

Vendramin-Calergi) 432, 432-3
San Giorgio Maggiore 630-2, 631,
645-6, 645, 646
Santi Giovanni e Paolo 150-1
Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari 150,
150-1,418, 419,599, 600.

603-4, 604, 612
San Sebastiano 632, 633
San Zaccaria facade 430-1, 431
Scuola di San Rocco, 624, 628, 628
Sala dell’Albergo 628, 629
Sala Grande 628-30, 629, 630
Scuola Grande di San Marco 431, 431
Zecca (Mint) 641, 642
Venus and Mars (Sandro Botticelli) 337,
337-8

Venus of Urbino (Titian) 606, 606-7
Venus pudica 340
Vergerio, Pier Paolo 25
Vernia, Nicoletto 427
Verona 617, 639
art in 156

Funerary Monument of Cansignorio

della Scala (Bonino da Campione)
156, 156

Palazzo Bevilacqua 639, 639-40
VERONESE, PAOLO (Paolo Caliari) 591,
632-7

Apotheosis of Venice ( Pax Veneta), Hall
of the Great Council, Doge’s
Palace, Venice 637, 637, 638
Feast in the House of Levi 634, 635
Marriage at Cana 634, 635
Mystical Marriage of St. Catherine 634,
636

Triumph of Mordecai, San Sebastiano,

INDEX * 733

Venice 632, 633
Villa Barbaro, Maser 633, 633
Wisdom , with the Seven Planetary
Gods 633-4, 634

VERROCCHIO, ANDREA DEL (Andrea di
Michele Cioni) 319, 327-30, 332
Baptism of Christ (with Leonardo da
Vinci 327, 327-8, 450, 450, 467
Christ and St. Thomas 328, 328
David 329, 329

Equestrian Monument of Bartolommeo
Colleoni (with Alessandro
Leopardi) 329-30, 330
Portrait of a Lady with Flowers 328-9,
329

Vertumnus and Pomona (Jacopo Carucci da
Pontormo) 559-60, 560
Vespasiano da Bisticci 258, 382
Vespucci, Simonena 337, 356
Vicenza 61”

Olympian Theater 646, 646-7, 647
Villa Almerico (Villa Rotonda/Villa
Capra) 643, 643-4

Victory (Michelangelo Buonarroti) 552-4,
553

View of an Ideal City (Luciano Laurana or
Piero della Francesca) 380, 380-1
VIGNOLA, GIACOMO DA (Jacopo
Barozzi) 683-7

II Gesu facade and plan (with Giacomo
della Porta) 685-6, 685
interior 685-6, 686

Palazzo Farnese, Caprarola 684-5, 684,
685

perspective diagram from Le Due

Regole della Prospetiva Practica
163, 163

Rules for the Five Architectural Orders
684

Villa Almerico (Villa Rotonda/Villa Capra),
Vicenza 643, 643-4

Villa Barbaro, Maser 633, 633, 644, 644— 5
Wisdom , with the Seven Planetary Gods
(Paolo Veronese) 633^4, 634
Villa Capra, Vicenza
see Villa Almerico
Villa Farnesina, Rome 534-41, 535

bedroom 536-8, 537
Loggia of Psyche 538, 539, 541
Sala delle Prospettive 538, 538
Sala di Galatea 534-6, 536, 537
Villa La Gallina, Florence 322, 322
Villa Madama (formerly Medici Villa),

Rome 531, 532

Villa Medici, Poggio a Caiano 309-11, 310,
559-60, 560
Villa Rotonda, Vicenza
see Villa Almerico
Villani, Filippo 25
Vitlani, Giovanni, Chronicle 73, 74
VINCI, LEONARDO DA
see Leonardo da Vinci
Virgil 317, 382, 559

Virgin and Child with Sts. Anne and John
the Baptist (Leonardo da Vinci) 463,
463-4

Virgin Annunciate (Antonello da Messina)
414, 414

Visconti, Archbishop Federigo 57
Visconti, Bernabo 152

equestrian monument to (Bonino da
Campione) 152, 152-3
sarcophagus (Workshop of Bonino da
Campione) 152

Visconti, Filippo Maria 160, 433, 467
Visconti, Giangaleazzo 149, 153, 154, 160,
359

Visconti family 152, 160, 389, 455
Visconti Hours (Giovannino de’ Grassi) 153,
153

Vision of Constantine (Piero della Francesca)
287, 288

Vision of St. Bernard (Fra Bartolommeo)
485, 485

Vision of St. Eustace (Antonio Pisanello)

390, 392

Vision of St. Jerome

(Andrea del Castagno), fresco Santissima
Annunziata, Florence 276-8, 277
(Parmigianino) 577-8, 578
Vision of St. John the Evangelist (Correggio)
574, 574-5
Visitation

(Fra Angelico) 226, 226

(Jacopo Carucci da Pontormo) 558, 558
Vitruvian Man: Study of the Human Body
(Leonardo da Vinci) 446-7, 447
Vitruvius 35, 175, 239, 446, 448, 591, 641,
643, 645

VITTORIA, ALESSANDRO 647
St. Jerome 647, 647
VIVARINI, ANTONIO 397

Coronation of the Virgin (with Giovanni
d’Alemagna) 394, 394—5
VIVARINI, ERMONIA, Nef 592, 592
Voragine, Jacobus de, Golden Legend 16

Way to Calvary (Simone Martini) 116, 117
Wedding Feast of Cupid and Psyche (Giulio
Romano) 587-8, 588

Weyden, Rogier van der 160, 293, 412, 434
Wisdom , with the Seven Planetary Gods
(Paolo Veronese) 633-4, 634
women

artists 25, 570-2, 621-2; see also

Anguissola, Sofonisba; Fontana,
Lavinia; Galizia, Fede; Properzia
de’ Rossi

and portraits 313, 324, 356, 451-2,

464, 466, 615-16, 622
Wool Factory (Mirabello Cavalori) 680, 680-1
Worship of the Brazen Serpent

(Michelangelo Buonarroti) 512, 512,
565, 575

ZANOBI DI DOMENICO, cassone (with
Biagio d’Antonio and Jacopo del
Sellaio) 331, 331-2
Zecca (Mint), Venice 641, 642
ZOCCHI, GIUSEPPE, The Piazza of

Florence cathedral in 1 754 , with the
Baptistery and Bell Tower 22, 22
ZORZI DA CASTELFRANCO
see Giorgione

ZUAN DA FRANZA, GIOVANNI AND
BARTOLOMEO BON, MATTEO
RAVERTI, and others, Ca d’Oro,
Venice 393, 393
Zuccari, Federico 687

Zuccone (Habakkuk) (Donatello) 196, 196-7

73 4

INDEX

CREDITS

PICTURE CREDITS

Collections are given in the captions alongside the illustrations.

Sources for illustrations not supplied by museums or collections,
additional information, and copyright credits are given below.

Numbers are figure numbers unless otherwise indicated.

The following abbreviations have been used:

FEC: Fondo Edifici di Culto — Ministero dell’Interno

MMA: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

front cover Quattrone; frontispiece Scala; 1.2, 1.3 BM; 1.4 Scala; 1.5
Alinari; 1.6 Scala; 1.7, 1.8 Quattrone; 1.9 Alinari; 1.10 © Yann Arthus-
Bertrand/Corbis; 1.11 Quattrone; 1.12 BM; 1.14 Scala/Art
Resource/MMA, New York Purchase, Rogers Fund, Walter and
Leonore Annenberg and The Annenberg Foundation Gift, Lila Acheson
Wallace Gift, Annette de la Renta Gift, Harris Brisbane Dick, Fletcher,
Louis V. Bell, and Dodge Funds, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, several
members of The Chairman’s Council Gifts, Elaine L. Rosenberg and
Stephenson Family Foundation Gifts, 2003 Benefit Fund, and other
gifts and funds from various donors, 2004 (2004.442). Photo © 2004
MMA; 1.16, 1.17 Quattrone; 1.18 © David Wilkins; 1.20 BM; page 39
Quattrone; 2.1 Quattrone; 2.2 © Enzo Brai, Palermo; 2.3, 2.4 Quat-
trone; 2.5 AKG Images/Eric Lessing; 2.6 Quattrone; 2.7 Scala; 2.8 With
permission of the Opera del Duomo di Orvieto and photographer
Massimo Roncello; 2.9 Alinari/Bridgeman; 2.10 Quattrone; 2.11
Scala/FEC; 2.12 Quattrone; 2.13 © Franco Cosimo Panini Editore,
Modena; 2.14 © courtesy of the Right Reverend Monsignor D.J. David
Lewis, Vicar Capitular and Administrator, Basilica Santa Maria Mag-
giore Rome; 2.15, 2.16 Quattrone; 2.18 Scala; 2.19 © Photo Vasari,
Rome; 2.20 Quattrone; 2.21 Alinari/Bridegman; 2.22 Alinari; 2.23
Scala; 2.24 Alinari; 2.25 Achim Bednorz, Cologne; 2.26 Scala/Photo
Opera Metropolitana Siena; 2.27 Alinari; 2.28 Fotografia Lensini,
Siena; 2.29, 2.30 Quattrone; 2.31 Alinari; 2.32 Quattrone; 2.33 ©
Ralph Lieberman/LKP Archives; 2.34 Alinari; 2.36 Scala/FEC; 2.38
Quattrone; 2.40 © Nicolo Orsi Battaglini, Florence; 2.41 Scala; 3.1, 3.2
Quattrone; 3.5, 3.6, 3.7, 3.8, 3.9, 3.10, 3.11 Quattrone; 3.12 Studio
Deganello, Padua; 3.13 Quattrone; 3.14 Alinari; 3.15, 3.16, 3.17, 3.18
Quattrone; 3.19 Scala/FEC; 3.20, 3.21, 3.22, 3.23, 3.24, 3.25 Quat-
trone; 3.26 Scala; 3.27 Quattrone; 3.28 Scala; 3.29, 3.30, 3.31, 3.32,
3.33 Quattrone; 3.34 © David Wilkins; 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.10, 4.11 Quat-
trone; 4.12 Scala; 4.13 Quattrone; 4.14 Fotografica Foglia, Naples;
4.15 Scala; 4.16, 4.17, 4.18 Quattrone; 4.19 Josse; 4.20, 4.21, 4.22
Quattrone; 4.23 Scala; 4.24 Alinari; 4.25, 4.26, 4.27, 4.28, 4.29, 4.30,
4.31 Quattrone; 4.32 © Sandro Vannini; 4.33, 4.34, 4.35, 4.36 with
permission of the Opera del Duomo di Orvieto and photographer
Massimo Roncello; 4.37 Alinari; 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, 5.4 Quattrone; 5.5 Scala;
5.6 Quattrone; 5.9 Scala/FEC; 5.10, 5.11, 5.12, 5.13 Quattrone; 5.15
Cameraphoto; 5.17, 5.18, 5.19 Quattrone; 5.20 Saporetti Immagini
d’Arte, Milan; 5.21 Biblioteca Nazionale, Florence/Microfoto; 5.22
Alinari; 5.23 Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris/Giraudon/The Bridgeman
Art Library; 5.24 Alinari; 5.24 Alinari/Bridgeman; page 157 Camera-
photo; 6.1 Quattrone; 6.5 RMN/Gerard Blot; 6.7, 6.8, 6.9 Quattrone;
6.10 Istituto Museo di Storia della Scienza, Florence: photography
Giacomo Bretzel; 6.11 artwork adaptation by Lew Minter; 6.12 Quat-
trone; 6.13 Scala; 6.15, 6.17 Quattrone; 6.18 Alinari; 6.23 Scala; 6.24,
6.25 Archivio di Stato Firenze/GAP/Donato Pineider; 6.26 Quattrone;
6.27 Scala, courtesy of Ministero per i Beni e le Attivita Culturali; 7.1,
7.2, 7.3, 7.4, 7.5, 7.6 Quattrone; 7.7 © Albertina, Vienna; 7.8 © Raf-
faello Bene ini/ Archivi Alinari, Florence; 7.10, 7.11 Quattrone; 7.12
Alinari; 7.13, 7.14, 7.15, 7.16 Quattrone; 7.17 Alinari; 7.18 Quattrone;

7.19 Scala/Photo Opera Metropolitana Siena; 7.20 Photo © 2002
MMA; 7.21 Alinari; 7.22 Sue Bolsom; 7.23, 7.24 With the permission
of Ministero per i Beni e le Attivita Culturali, Archivio Fotografico
Soprintendenza PSAE, Bologna; 8.1, 8.2, 8.3, 8.4, 8,5, 8.7, 8.9, 8.10,
8.11, 8.12, 8.13, 8.14, 8.15, 8.16 Quattrone; 8.17 NGL; 8.18
Fotografica Foglia, Naples; 8.19 Scala/BPK, Bildagentur fuer Kunst,
Kultur und Geschichte, Berlin, photo Jorg P. Anders; 8.20 Scala/©
2005 BPK, Bildagentur fuer Kunst, Kultur und Geshichte, Berlin; 8.21
Quattrone; 8.22 Diocesi di Forli; 9.1, 9.2, 9.3, 9.5, 9.7, 9.8 Quattrone;
9.9 Pirozzi; 9.9, 9.10, 9.11, 9.12, 9.13, 9.14 Quattrone; 9.15
Scala/Bildagentur fuer Kunst, Kultur und Geschichte, Berlin, photo Jorg
P. Anders; 10.1 Scala; 10.2. 10.3 Samuel H. Kress Collection. Image ©
2009 Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC; 10.4
Scala; 10.5 Alinari; 10.6 Quattrone; 10.7 Scala; 10.9 Scala/courtesy of
Diocesi di Mantova; 10.11 Scala; 10.12, 10.13, 10.14, 10.15 Quat-
trone; 10.16, 10.17 Scala; 10.18, 10.19 Quattrone; 10.20 © David
Wilkins; 10.21, 10.22 Quattrone; 10.23 Cameraphoto; 10.24 Scala;
10.25, 10.26 Cameraphoto and Associazione Centro Studi Antoniani,
Padua; 10.27 Quattrone; 10.28 © David Wilkins; 11.1 Quattrone; 11.2
Alinari; 11.3, 11.4, 11.5 Quattrone; 11.6 NGL; 11.7 Scala/BPK, Bilda-
gentur fuer Kunst, Kultur und Geschichte, Berlin, photo Jorg P. Anders;

11.8 main panel Quattrone; 11.8 predella panels from left, first two
panels: Samuel H. Kress Collection. Image courtesy of the Board of
Trustees, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC. Centre panel see
1 1 .9. Next panel see 11.11. Far right panel Scala/BPK, Bildagentur fuer
Kunst, Kultur und Geschichte, Berlin, photo Jorg P. Anders; 1 1.9, 11.11
Reproduction by permission of the Syndics of the Fitzwilliam Museum,
Cambridge; 11.12, 11.14, 11.15, 11.17, 11.18 Quattrone; 11.19 NGL;
11.20 Quattrone; 11.21, 11.23, 11.24, 11.25, 11.26, 11.27, 11.28
Scala, courtesy of Ministero per i Beni e le Attivita Culturali; 11.29
Alinari/Bridegman; 11.30 Scala, courtesy of Ministero per i Beni e le
Attivita Culturali; 11.31, 11.32 Quattrone; 12.1 Quattrone; 12.2
Fotografica Foglia, Naples; 12.3 MMA, NY. Purchase in memory of Sir
John Pope Hennessy: Rogers Fund, The Annenberg Foundation, Drue
Heinz Foundation, Annette de la Renta, Mr and Mrs. Frank E Richard-
son, and The Vincent Astor Foundation Gifts, Wrightsman and
Gwynne Andrews Funds, special funds, and Gift of the children of Mrs
Harry Payne Whitney, Gift of Mr and Mrs Joshua Logan, and other
gifts and bequests, by exchange, 1995 (1995.7). Photo ©2004 MMA;

12.6, 12.7, 12.8 Quattrone; 12.9 Scala; 12.10, 12.11 Scala/FEC; 12.12
RMN/Rene-Gabriel Ojeda; 12.13, 12.14, 12.15, 12.16, 12.17 Quat-
trone; 12.18 Alinari; 12.20, 12.21 Quattrone; 12.23 Scala; 12.24 Quat-
trone; 12.25 NGL; 12.26, 12.27 Quattrone; 12.28 © Bridgeman An
Library; 13.1, 13.2, 13.3, 13.4 Quattrone; 13.5 The Cleveland Museum
of Art. Purchase from the J.H. Wade Fund 1967.127; 13.6 Quattrone;

13.7, 13.8 NGL; 13.9, 13.10, 13.11 Scala; 13.12 Quattrone; 13.13
Scala; 13.14, 13.15 Quattrone; 13.16 Cameraphoto; 13.17 Counauld
Institute of Art Gallery, London; 13.18 Scala, courtesy of Ministero per
i Beni e le Attivita Culturali; 13.19 Photo Vatican Museums; 13.21
Quattrone; 13.22 NGL; 13.23, 13.24 Quattrone; 13.25 BM; 13.26,
13.27, 13.29 Quattrone; 13.30 NGL; 13.31, 13.32, 13.33, 13.34,
13.35, 13.36, 13.37 Quattrone; 13.38 Scala/FEC; 13.39 Quattrone;
13.40 Josse; 13.41 Bridgeman Art Library, London; 13.42 NGL; 13.43
Scala/Art Resource/MMA, NY (Gift of Robert Gordon, 1875 75.7.2.
Photo ©1981 MMA; 14.1 Alinari; 14.3 Bridgeman Art Library,
London; 14.4 Quattrone; 14.5, 14.6 Alinari; 14.7 Scala; 14.8 Alinari;

14.9 Quattrone; 14.10 Scala, courtesy of Ministero per i Beni e le Attiv-
ita Culturali; 14.11, 14.13 Scala; 14.14 Widener Collection, Image
courtesy of the Board of Trustees, National Gallery' of Art, Washington
DC; 14.15 Andrew W. Mellon Collection, Image courtesy of the Board
of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC; 14.16, 14.17
Photo Vatican Museums; 14.20 Quattrone; 14.21 Alinari; 14.23
Scala/Opera Metropolitana Siena; 14.24 Scala; 14.25, 14.26, 14.27,
14.28 Pirozzi; 14.29 Scala, courtesy of Ministero per i Beni e le Attivita
Culturali; 14.30 © Archivi Alinari/Bridgeman, Florence; 14.31 Scala,
courtesy of Ministero per i Beni e le Attivita Culturali; 14.32 Alinari;
14.34 Fotografica Foglia, Naples; 14.35 Scala/BPK, Bildagentur fuer
Kunst, Kultur und Geschichte, Berlin, photo Jorg P. Anders; 14.37,
14.38 With permission of the Opera del Duomo di Orvieto and photog-
rapher Massimo Roncello; 15.1, 15.2 Cameraphoto; 15.3 RMN/J.G.
Berizzi; 15.4 BM; 15.5 NGL; 15.6, 15.7 photo Bibliotheque Nationale
de France; 15.8, 15.9, 15.10 Cameraphoto; 15.11 Josse; 15.12
RMN/Gerard Blot; 15.13 RMN/Berizzi; 15.14, 15.15, 15.16, 15.17,

CREDITS • 7 3 5

15.18 Alinari; 15.19, 15.20 Cameraphoto; 15.21 Josse; 15.22 NGL;

15.23 Scala, courtesy of Ministero per i Beni e le Attivita Culturali;

15.24 Quattrone; 15.25 © Studio Fotografico Giovetti, Mantua; 15.26
Quattrone; 15.27 Josse; 15.28 Purchase, Rogers Fund, The Charles
Engelhard Foundation Fit, and The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The
Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1986 # 1986.11 59. © 2007. Image copyright
MMA/Art Resource/Scala; 15.29 © Kunsthistorisches Museum,
Vienna; 15.30 BM; 15.31 Josse; 15.32 Cameraphoto; 15.33, 15.34
NGL; 15.35 Scala; 15.36 NGL; 15.37 © Staatliche Kunstsammlungen
Dresden; 15.38 Scala/Art Resource/Image © 2007 MMA; 15.39 NGL;
15.40 Scala, courtesy of Ministero per i Beni e le Attivita Culturali;

15.41, 15.42 Cameraphoto; 15.43 © The Frick Collection, New York;
15.44 Reproduced with permission of the artist © Thomas Struth, Dus-
seldorf; 15.45, 15.46, 15.47 Cameraphoto; 15.48 Scala/Art
Resource/Image © MMA; 15.50 Scala, courtesy of Ministero per i Beni
e le Attivita Culturali; 15.51 © V&A Images, Victoria & Albert
Museum; 15.52 © 2004, Photo Pierpont Morgan Library/Art
Resource/Scala, Florence; 15.53, 15.54, 15.55, 15.56, 15.57, 15.58,
15.59 Cameraphoto; 15.60, 15.61 Scala; 15.62 NGL; 15.63 Josse;

15.64 Scala, courtesy of Ministero per i Beni e le Attivita Culturali;
15.65, 15.66 Cameraphoto; 15.67 Scala/BPK, Bildagentur fuer Kunst,
Kultur und Geschichte, Berlin, photo Jorg P. Anders; 15.68 Foto
Roncaglia, Modena; page 441 De Luca; 16.1 Quattrone; 16.2 Windsor
RL 12409; 16.3 Windsor RL 12424; 16.4 Windsor 12278; 16.5 Cam-
eraphoto; 16.6 Windsor RL 12596; 16.7 Windsor RL 12619r; 16.8
RMN; 16.10 Windsor RL 12660; 16.11, 16.12 Quattrone; 16.13 Scala;
16.16, 16.17 Quattrone; 16.17 Quattrone; 16.18 Josse; 16.19 Alinari;
16.20 Windsor RL 12358; 16.21 The Royal Collection © 2009 Her
Majesty Queen Elizabeth II; 16.22 Cameraphoto; 16.23, 16.24, 16.25
Quattrone; 16.26 Scala/Art Resource. Image © MMA. Purchase, Dr
and Mrs Goodwin M. Breinin Gift, 1998. # 1998.19 5 ©2007; 16.27
NGL; 16.28 Josse; 16.29 RMN/Gerard Blot; 16.30 RMN; 16.31 Cam-
eraphoto; 16.32 Windsor RL 12382; 16.33, 16.34, 16.35, 16.36 Quat-
trone; 16.37 De Luca; 16.38 Scala; 16.39 Quattrone; 16.40 Photo
RMN, Le Mage; 16.41, 16.42, 16.43 Quattrone; 16.44 Scala, courtesy
of Ministero per i Beni e le Attivita Culturali; 16.46 BM; 16.49, 16.50,
16.51 Quattrone; 17.1 Photo Vatican Museums; 17.2 photo Biblio-
theque Nationale de France; 17.3 © Araldo De Luca; 17.4 Scala/BPK,
Bildagentur fuer Kunst, Kultur und Geschichte, Berlin, photo Jorg P.
Anders; 17.5, 17.8 Scala; 17.9 Pirozzi; 17.11 BM; 17.13 Quattrone;
17.15 Alinari; 17.16 Scala; 17.17 Quattrone; 17.18 By courtesy of the
Trustees of Sir John Soane’s Museum; 17.21 BM; 17.23 Photo Vatican
Museums; 17.24 Quattrone; 17.25, 17.26, 17.27, 17.28, 17.29 Photo
Vatican Museums; 17.30 Takashi Okamura/Abrams Archive; 17.31,
17.32 Photo Vatican Museums; 17.33 Takashi Okamura/Abrams
Archive; 17.34, 17.35, 17.36 Photo Vatican Museums; 17.37 MMA,
Purchase, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, 1924 (24.197.2). Photo, all rights
reserved, MMA; 17.38, 17.39 Photo Vatican Museums; 17.41 Pirozzi;

17.42, 17.43 Josse; 17.45, 17.46, 17.47 Photo Vatican Museums; 17.48
© Biblioteca Ambrosiana, auth. no VB057/09; 17.49, 17.51, 17.52
Photo Vatican Museums; 17.53 Scala/BPK, Bildagentur fuer Kunst,
Kultur und Geschichte, Berlin; 17.54 Quattrone; 17.55 Josse; 17.56
Quattrone; 17.57 © V&A Images/The Royal Collection/Victoria and
Albert Museum; 17.58 Photo Vatican Museums; 17.59 © V&A
Images/The Royal Collection/Victoria and Albert Museum; 17.60
Image © 2005 Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, Washington
DC; 17.61 © Rafaello Bencini/Archivi Alinari, Florence; 17.62 NGL;
17.63 Photo Vatican Museums; 17.64, 17.66, 17.67, 17.68, 17.69,
17.70, 17.71, 17.72, 17.73 Pirozzi; 17.74 © James Morris, London;
18.1, 18.2, 18.3, 18.4, 18.5, 18.6, 18.7 Quattrone; 18.9 Scala, courtesy
of Ministero per i Beni e le Attivita Culturali; 18.10, 18.11, 18.12 Quat-
trone; 18.11, 18.12 Quattrone; 18.13 Scala; 18.15 Quattrone; 18.16
Alinari/Bridgeman; 18.17, 18.18, 18.19, 18.20, 18.21 Quattrone;

18.22 NGL; 18.23, 18.24, 18.25, 18.26, 18.27, 18.28, 18.29 Quat-
trone; 18.31 Scala; 18.32, 18.33, 18.34 Quattrone; 18.35, 18.36
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh: Howard A. Noble Fund 69.9.2 &
69.9.1; 18.37 © The British Library; 18.38 With the permission of
Ministero per i Beni e le Attivita Culturali, Archivio Fotografico
Soprintendenza PSAE, Bologna; 18.39, 18.40 Scala; 18.41 Quattrone;
18.42 Scala/BPK, Bildagentur fuer Kunst, Kultur und Geschichte,
Berlin; 18.43, 18.44, 18.45 Scala; 18.49 NGL; 18.50 Quattrone; 18.52
© Albertina, Vienna; 18.53 Scala; 18.55 Scala; 18.56 Quattrone; 18.57
Pirozzi; 18.59 Alinari; 18.60 Pirozzi; 18.61 Scala; 18.63 AKG
Images/Eric Lessing; 18.64 © Archivi Alinari/Bridgeman, Florence;

18.65 Scala; 19.1 Quattrone; 19.2 © British Library; 19.3 BM; 19.4
Cameraphoto; 19.5 Quattrone; 19.6 © Staatliche Kunstsammlungen
Dresden; 19.7 Josse; 19.9 NGL; 19.10, 19.11 Cameraphoto; 19.12 ©

19.18 Josse; 19.19 Quattrone; 19.20 Cameraphoto; 19.21 Foglia;

19.23 Cameraphoto; 19.24 © Bridgeman Art Library; 19.26 Artothek
(www.artothek.de); 19.27 Cameraphoto; 19.29 NGL; 19.30 Archivio
Fotografico Messaggero di Sant’Antonio, photographer Giorgio
Deganello; 19.31 NGL; 19.32, 19.33 Pirozzi; 19.34 Scala; 19.35, 19.36
NGL; 19.37 Photo © 2006 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; 19.38 ©
Bridgeman Art Library; 19.39 Quattrone; 19.40, 19.41, 19.42, 19.43,

19.44, 19.45, 19.46, 19.47, 19.48, 19.49, 19.50 Cameraphoto; 19.51
RMN; 19.52, 19.53, 19.54, 19.55 Cameraphoto; 19.57 Alinari; 19.59,
19.60, 19.61, 19.62, 19.66, 19.68, 19.69 Cameraphoto; 19.71 ©
Bridgeman Art Library; 19.72 Cameraphoto; 20.1, 20.2, 20.3, 20.4,
20.5, 20.6 Photo Vatican Museums; 20.7 © Zeno Colantoni, Rome;
20.8 courtesy of Fabbrica di San Pietro in Vaticano; 20.10 © James
Morris, London; 20.11 courtesy of Fabbrica di San Pietro in Vaticano;
20.12 BM; 20.14 Pirozzi; 20.15 BM; 20.16 Quattrone; 20.17 Scala;

20.19 Photo Vatican Museums; 20.20, 20.22, 20.23, 20.24, 20.25
Quattrone; 20.26 Scala, courtesy of Ministero per i Beni e le Attivita
Culturali; 20.27 Scala; 20.29, 20.30, 20.31, 20.32 Quattrone; 20.33
NGL; 20.34, 20.35 Quattrone; 20.37 Pirozzi; 20.38 Detroit Institute of
Arts, Founders Society Purchase, Robert H. Tannahill Foundation
Fund, New Endowment Fund, Henry Ford II Fund, Benson and Edith
Ford Fund, Mr & Mrs Walter Buhl Ford II Fund, Mr & Mrs Horace E.
Dodge Memorial Fund, Josephine & Ernest Kanzier Fund; gifts from
Mrs Horace E. Dodge, Mrs Russell A. Alger, Mr & Mrs B. Edgar, photo
© 2000 The Detroit Institute of Arts; 20.40, 20.41 Scala; 20.42, 20.43,

20.44, 20.45, 20.46 Quattrone; 20.48 Pirozzi; 20.49 Quattrone; 20.50
Publi Aer Foto, Varese; 20.51, 20.52 Alinari; 20.53 DK Images; 20.54
De Luca, Rome; 20.55 Pirozzi; 20.56 Quattrone; 20.57 © Biblioteca
Ambrosiana, auth. no VB057/09; 20.58 © Araldo De Luca; 20.59
MMA, NY, The Elisha Wittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittesley
Fund, 1949 (49.95.146 pl.4).

LITERARY CREDITS

Page 243: Quotation extracted from Richardson, Carol M., Kim W.
Woods, and Michael W. Franklin, eds. Renaissance Art Reconsidered:
An Anthology of Primary Sources, Oxford: Blackwell, 2007. P. 307.

Page 247: Quotation extracted from Richardson, Carol M., Kim W.
Woods, and Michael W. Franklin, eds. Renaissance Art Reconsidered:
An Anthology of Primary Sources. Oxford: Blackwell, 2007. Pp.
219-20.

Page 301: Quotation extracted from Pope-Hennessy, John. Italian
Renaissance Sculpture. London: Phaidon Press Ltd., 1971.

Page 302: Quotation extracted from Reiss, Sheryl E., and David G.
Wilkins, eds. Beyond Isabella: Secular Women Patrons of Art in Renais-
sance Italy. Vol 54, Sixteenth -Century Essays and Studies. Kirksville,
MO: Truman State University Press, 2001.

Page 382: Quotation extracted from Richardson, Carol M., Kim W.
Woods, and Michael W. Franklin, eds. Renaissance Art Reconsidered:
An Anthology of Primary Sources. Oxford: Blackwell, 2007.
Pp.327-39.

Pages 436-39: Quotations extracted from Campbell, Stephen J. Cosme
Tura of Ferrara: Style, Politics , and the Renaissance City, 1450-1495.
New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997.

Page 531: Quotation extracted from Richardson, Carol M., Kim W.
Woods, and Michael W. Franklin, eds. Renaissance Art Reconsidered:
An Anthology of Primary Sources. Oxford: Blackwell, 2007. P. 135.

Page 669: Quotation extracted from Cellini, Benvenuto. The Autobiog-
raphy of Benvenuto Cellini. Translated by George Bull © 1956. Har-
mondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin, 1956. Reproduced with
permission of Penguin Books Ltd., pp. 290-91.

736 * CREDITS

About the book

History of Italian Renaissance Art , Seventh Edition,
brings you an updated understanding of this pivotal
period as it incorporates new research and current art
historical thinking, while also maintaining the integrity of
the story that Frederick Hartt first told so enthusiastically
many years ago. Choosing to retain Frederick Ham’s
traditional framework, David Wilkins’ incisive revisions
keep the book fresh and up-to-date.

Newly added works of art reflect our ever-expanding
understanding of the diversity of the Renaissance period.
These additions include more drawings and prints, as
well as examples of porcelain, stained glass, and blown
glass. The visual culture of the time also encompassed
inexpensive, mass-produced devotional works, and a
print known as the Madonna del Fuoco has been added
as a rare surviving example of this type of work. Several
more portraits and a new representation of the David and
Goliath theme expand the exploration of iconographic
themes. More color illustrations can be found throughout,
with a special emphasis on showing architefcture and
architectural models in color. An updated bibliography
provides a guide for further reading about artists and
major topics.

David Wilkins brings a strong, contempoiary sensibility
to Italian Renaissance art, revising the tex t for greater
clarity, but always with an eye to preserving the evocative
and compelling voice of the book’s original author.

“The History of Italian Renaissance Art just got even
better! I like the organization and approach. It’s both
scholarly and accessible.”

Sara N. James, Mary Baldwin College

“I’ve been using the book for forty years, from its
first edition in 1969, since it was, and still is, the best
available comprehensive overview of the major arts
of the Italian Renaissance.”

Robert Munman, University of Illinois at Chicago

“... consistently rich in its content, reliable in its
information, and enjoyable for the enthusiasm and
knowledge of its authors.”

Catherine Turrill, California State University, Sacramento

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